Taylor Swift Gives Us an Encore

Photo: @taylorswift via Instagram

Thank you, Taylor Swift, for putting us out of our mystery-induced misery sooner than later: “Patient Zero,” her forthcoming single announced yesterday, is not a harbinger of a new era but, in fact, an extension of the last. On September 23, the singer announced that she would be releasing four new songs on September 25 as a part of The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore. Wait a minute, didn’t she say on New Heights that The Life of a Showgirl would only ever have 12 songs on it? Well … yes. But that was then, and the encore is now.

In the aftermath of Showgirl’s successful release, Swift writes that she took a trip back to Sweden to celebrate with collaborators Max Martin and Shellback. “Really, we just wanted to reflect and take in how grateful we were for the moment we were in, but there was a studio there and we did what we do when we feel anything at all: We wrote more songs,” she explains, before adding, “I hope you love them, because they were born out of pure gratitude for your exuberance for and celebration of the album we made.” Totally; however, the single art for “Patient Zero,” what with its grays and blues and blacks and overall dour sadness, is not exactly giving, say, “exuberance” or “celebration.” Given Life of a Showgirl ends on something of a dark note, maybe this encore is less victory lap and more of a talking-to for not going as hard for “Eldest Daughter” as she would have wanted us to. The other three tracks on the encore are titled “Cleveland!,” “Pink Clouding,” and “Babylon,” all of which feel classically Swiftian in their own way. No 30 Rock, but I personally can’t wait to see what’s going on in “Cleveland!” We’ll be seeing what she has in store for us at tomorrow at midnight.