Taylor Swift is giving The Life of a Showgirl an encore, literally. She announced that a deluxe edition of the album, titled The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore, will arrive Friday, September 25, expanding the original 12 track record with four new songs.
Where the new songs came from
Swift explained the backstory on Instagram, writing that about a year ago fans gave The Life of a Showgirl the biggest first week for an album in history, and that she later traveled to Sweden with collaborators Max Martin and Shellback to reflect on that moment. She said the trip turned into a studio session almost by accident, since the two of them tend to write more songs whenever they feel something strongly, and that the resulting tracks came from pure gratitude for how fans embraced the record.
What is actually on it
The four new additions are Patient Zero, Cleveland! (notably the Ohio city where husband Travis Kelce grew up), Pink Clouding and Babylon, joining the original tracklist. No music videos have been confirmed yet, though Swift fueled speculation last month that she was filming one. She has not been announced as a performer at Sunday's MTV VMAs, but she is set to accept the ceremony's first ever Artist Director Honors award and holds 11 nominations this year.
A possible Emmys connection
Fans are already tying the announcement back to Swift's cryptic pre-taped Emmys sketch, where she dropped a strange phrase that some believe spells out encore as an anagram, reading the third letter of each of the first six words she spoke. Whether that theory holds up or not, it fits a pattern of Swift dropping Easter eggs well before an official announcement lands.