← A (Brief) History of Taylor Swift The Life of a Showgirl · Vault Sessions Vol. II

What Could've Been_

The ones that almost made it.

Original creative writing — not affiliated with Taylor Swift.
These songs don't exist. :(
Read the full (brief) history ↗

Track 1 3:42

Standing Ovation

Revenge served with confetti

Verse 1

You called it a phase, said I'd peaked at twenty-three
Posted your little think piece on a Thursday
I was in Zurich, sold out, not checking my phone
By Friday you were quoting me

Pre-Chorus

I don't need you in the room
But I do love that you're watching
From the very back row
That you paid for yourself

Chorus

Standing ovation, seventy thousand on their feet
And you're refreshing your mentions from the cheap seats
You called the run over, said the lights were out
Baby, that's not what standing ovations are about
It's not for you — it was never about you

Verse 2

You gave that interview, bless your heart
Said I was "overexposed, past my commercial peak"
The week my tour grossed a hundred million dollars
And your podcast lost its deal

Bridge

You could clap now
Or you could keep typing
I genuinely don't care which one
I'm already gone

Outro Chorus

Standing ovation — standing ovation
Seventy thousand, not a single one of them you
Not one of them you

Imagined vault track · The Life of a Showgirl · Original creative writing

Track 2 3:18

MAIN CHARACTER

All caps. Fully aware.

Verse 1

The think pieces said I was making it all about me
I was at the Met, I couldn't hear them
The op-eds said my era was commercially cynical
My era grossed two billion dollars
I think we define cynical differently

Chorus

MAIN CHARACTER, go ahead, write it down
MAIN CHARACTER of every think piece in this town
Somebody has to be the one who moves the plot along
Might as well be the one who's been writing all the songs
MAIN CHARACTER — and honestly? Thank you

Bridge

Go ahead and call it a narrative
I call it Tuesday
There's a word for women who know what they want
I've been called it

Outro

MAIN CHARACTER — MAIN CHARACTER
Still moving the plot
Still writing the songs
Still here

Imagined vault track · The Life of a Showgirl · Original creative writing

Track 3 3:55

Rhinestone

Maximalist and fully aware of it

Verse 1

Anna Wintour approved the look at 11pm
They sewed me into it at 4am
Thirty thousand crystals, fourteen people
And one woman asking if this was too much
It was not too much

Chorus

Rhinestone, rhinestone, all down the aisle
Fake as hell and worth every mile
You want authenticity, I'll give you a show
There's nothing more real than the way this glows
Rhinestone — beautiful, cold, and mine

Bridge

I'm not a diamond
Diamonds don't catch light like this
Diamonds don't stop traffic on Fifth Avenue
At 1am on a Wednesday
But I do

Imagined vault track · The Life of a Showgirl · Original creative writing

Track 4 4:12

Matinee

A relationship that only existed in public

Verse 1

We did the whole thing — the airport, the dinners
The very deliberate Sunday afternoon walk
Past the restaurant they always photograph
You held my hand like you'd practiced it
I smiled like I hadn't noticed

Chorus

Matinee, two o'clock, look this way
We only ever loved each other in the daylight
Shorter run, cheaper seats, one season only
Nobody was there for the night show
We never had a night show

Bridge

Somewhere between the first paparazzi shot
And the last one
Something might have been real
I actually can't tell anymore
And that's the saddest thing I've ever said

Imagined vault track · The Life of a Showgirl · Original creative writing

Track 5 4:28

Intermission

The feud song. Plausible deniability intact.

Verse 1

So a girl posts a video calling me out by name
Thirty million views in forty-eight hours
I was in a studio in London, didn't see it
My lawyer did
My lawyer always sees it first

Chorus

Intermission — check your phone, take a breath
See who's trending, see who's left
The second act reveals what the first one meant
Intermission — I'm not saying anything
I'm just in London

Bridge

The lights come back up
The story continues
I never said her name
I'm not saying it now
The algorithm already knows

Outro

Just watching — just watching
From London
Just watching

Imagined vault track · The Life of a Showgirl · Original creative writing · Any resemblance to real feuds is entirely the point and also entirely deniable

Track 6 3:36

Green Room

The quiet one

Verse 1

Twenty minutes before the show in Brisbane
I ate a granola bar over a trash can
In a sports bra with my hair half-done
And nobody needed anything from me
For twenty actual minutes
I almost cried about it

Chorus

In the green room I'm nobody's anything
Not a brand, not a moment, not a thing
Just a person eating a granola bar
Who happens to know every word
To every song she's about to sing
In the green room

Bridge

Twenty minutes
Brisbane, Glasgow, São Paulo, Rome
Twenty minutes in every city
That is the entire amount
Of time I have
That is only mine

Imagined vault track · The Life of a Showgirl · Original creative writing

Track 7 5:14

Speak When Spoken Tofeat. feat. Olivia Rodrigo

The supposed feud becomes a duet. Both winning.

Verse 1 — Taylor

The headline wrote itself before we'd even met
Two women at the top and one of us had to fall
They needed a catfight for the slow news week
We were in the studio, didn't take the call

Verse 2 — Olivia

I grew up on your songs, I said it in an interview
They turned that into a whole thing
You texted me, I texted back
They turned that into a whole thing
Everything is always a whole thing

Chorus — Both

Speak when spoken to — who made that rule
Speak when spoken to — we were never that girl
They put us in a box and we turned it into a stage
Speak when spoken to?
We speak when we want

Bridge

Two women at the top of the same mountain
They really hate that
They hate that so much
We find it pretty funny actually

Imagined vault track · The Life of a Showgirl · Original creative writing · Olivia Rodrigo has no connection to this project. This is fan fiction.

Track 8 4:47

House Lights Down

The slow devastating one

Verse 1

Last night of the run, the crew's already in cabs
Cast WhatsApp's blowing up about the afterparty
I'm standing center stage in the dark
Asking the empty seats a question
They've already heard seventy-three thousand answers to

Chorus

House lights down, nobody's watching now
No one to perform it for, no one to take a bow
Just a woman on a stage who built this all herself
Standing in the wreckage of everything that went well
House lights down

Bridge

The show was perfect
Every night the show was perfect
I don't know what the hell I'm going to do now
That the show was perfect

Outro

House lights down
Just a woman and a stage
And a very long pause
House lights down

Imagined vault track · The Life of a Showgirl · Original creative writing

Track 9 3:22

The Life of a Showgirl (Reprise)

The coda. What comes after the curtain.

Verse

I've been doing this since I was seventeen
I am so good at it now it's genuinely alarming
I can cry on command, I can fill a stadium
I can read a room from three hundred feet away
I learned all of this in public
Every mistake was a headline
Every headline was a lesson
I have a lot of lessons

Chorus

This is the life of a showgirl
Make it beautiful or go home
I was never going home
So I made it so goddamn beautiful
Every night, even the bad ones
Especially the bad ones

Bridge

Ask me if I'd do it again
Don't ask me that
Yes
Obviously yes

Final Chorus

This is the life of a showgirl
You make it beautiful or you go home
I was never, ever going home
So I made it beautiful
Every night — beautiful
The whole damn thing — beautiful
Still here — beautiful
Still here

Imagined vault track · The Life of a Showgirl · Original creative writing · These songs don't exist. The feeling that they should is the whole point.

Track 10 2:58

Curtain Call

The one that breaks the frame

Verse 1

I know exactly how I look taking this bow
I've practiced it — not ashamed to say I've practiced it
The angle, the pause, the hand to the heart
The specific kind of overwhelmed
That reads as genuine from the back row
Because it is genuine
That's the part they never believe

Chorus

Curtain call, take a bow, do it all again tomorrow
Thirty-eight cities, forty-four songs, borrowed time I bought
They paid to see the version I invented at seventeen
She's still in there
She's right here actually
She never left

Verse 2

The girl from Pennsylvania who cold-called labels
Is the same one standing in this light
Same hands, same stubborn, same notebook full of things
She wanted to say
She just has a better sound system now

Outro

What if I walked offstage and never came back…

Would anyone notice the difference…

Would anyone notice the difference…

Imagined vault track · The Life of a Showgirl · Original creative writing