Well, Taylor Swift’s new music dropped today. I was wrong, this isn’t technically a new album, it’s the same old Life of a Showgirl, but with four new songs. The whole project is called The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore. She has released “Patient Zero” as a single, and the music video for that song will premiere at Sunday night’s MTV VMAs. The music video preview (released by Swift this week) shows that Dakota Johnson and Colin Farrell star in it, in some kind of love triangle.
Now that “Patient Zero” has been released and we know what the song is actually about though… it’s less like a love triangle and more like Taylor waiting for a call from one of her exes’ new girlfriends/wives/partners. Swifties already have theories about who the song is actually about: Gabbriette Bechtel (Matt Healy), Sophie Turner (Joe Jonas) or Sarah Pidgeon (Joe Alwyn). Considering how lovesick Taylor was/is about Healy, I suspect this is about waiting for a call from Gabbriette, but Sophie fits really well.
One of the other new songs is “Cleveland,” obviously about Travis Kelce and how much he loves her. Lyrically, this is not it. It’s one of the funniest ironies in the world that Taylor can write some truly heart-wrenching and poetic songs about dating f–kboys and scrubs, but now that she’s with a normal guy who loves her and doesn’t play games, suddenly her love songs are about Ohio and his dong.
Here’s “Pink Clouding” – they’re saying this is about Tom Hiddleston!!
And here’s the preview for the music video for “Patient Zero.”
This Sunday. @vmas. pic.twitter.com/dqELDIADSF
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) September 24, 2026
Photos courtesy of Taylor Swift’s social media.
