Taylor Swift’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl, has inspired a myriad of hot takes, from fan infighting over whether the album is or isn’t her best work to deep analysis of her alleged lyrical digs at fellow pop star Charli XCX and producer Scott Borchetta.
But there’s one piece of discourse that’s being bandied about that feels patently absurd: that Taylor Swift, the now-billionaire pop star who has spent the past 20 years clawing her way to becoming one of the most famous artists of all time, is about to become a so-called trad wife.
Yes, sorry, but no. Taylor Swift, a trad wife? We’re really losing the plot here, people.
The main culprit behind this chatter is track eight on the new album, titled “Wi$h Li$t.” In it, Swift sings about how while others in the industry want things like an “Oscar,” money, and “Balenci’ shades,” her current dreams are much simpler.
“I just want you.… Have a couple kids, got the whole block looking like you,” she sings, continuing. “Got me drеaming ’bout a driveway with a basketball hoop.”
The lyrics are obviously about her relationship with Travis Kelce, to whom she got engaged last month. In another line, Swift dreams of the world leaving her and Kelce “the fuck alone,” allowing them to settle down and have a family without the entire human race watching their every move.
The song is a bit of a coming-of-age story that feels familiar to anyone experiencing the change that comes with finding the person you are going to marry. Certainly, Swift is not the only soon-to-be 36-year-old who is more excited about settling down than going to the club.
But in 2025, discussing domesticity and family life is particularly fraught, and much is being made of Swift expressing these desires. Instead of viewing the lyrics as what they are—an exploration into a new life chapter; one that she seemingly always wanted—people on both the right and left are taking them as a treatise that Swift is abandoning everything that makes her herself in order to become a bread-baking barefoot mom and wife. It’s unclear when expressing excitement about getting married and having kids means you want to go full 1950s.
