Taylor Swift has unveiled the music video for “Elizabeth Taylor,” the second track from her record-breaking 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl.
The visual serves as a kind of visual homage to complement Swift’s about the legendary starlet, featuring an array of clips from Taylor’s life and classic filmography. It appears that Swift has only released the “Elizabeth Taylor” visual on streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, with no version on YouTube as of yet. (YouTube, it’s perhaps worth noting, recently stopped submitting data to Billboard, so streams there no longer count towards placement on charts like the Hot 100.)
Many critics consider “Elizabeth Taylor” to be the centerpiece of The Life of a Showgirl. The track pays homage to the legendary Hollywood actress whose own career mirrored Swift’s own in many ways. As Rolling Stone music critic Rob Sheffield writes, “the Liz/Swift soul connection goes deep, way beyond their shared name. Both Taylors got famous as kids, grew up in public as America’s sweetheart,” adding, “like Swift, Liz was the ingenue who made everything sticky by growing up.”
Last month, Swift celebrated the success of Life of a Showgirl track “Opalite” topping the Billboard Hot 100 — which marked her 14th song to dominate the charts. The song followed her lead single, “The Fate of Ophelia,” which charted at Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 for 10 weeks. The video for “Opalite” saw the singer-songwriter travel back to the Nineties and featured a star-studded cast including Graham Norton, Domnhall Gleeson, Lewis Capaldi, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith, and even Cillian Murphy.
When accepting the award for Artist of the Year at the iHeartRadio Music Awards last week, Swift delivered heartfelt acceptance speech, reflecting on her 20-year career trajectory. “Thank you for allowing me to turn my hobby into a love, into a passion, into a dream, into a career,” she told the crowd. Swift, who made history that night with seven wins, added, “Thank you for allowing me to have it this long. I wish you the best with everything you do.”
