The undercurrent of anxiety present in some love songs on Reputation, Lover (2019), and Midnights is gone (“I thought I had it right, once, twice, but I did not,” Swift sings on “Wi$hli$t,” track eight on Showgirl)—replaced with the kind of buoyant hope only found in romantic comedies. In the weeks before Showgirl’s release, Kelce joked that he and Swift were living out the Cinderella-style plot of Pretty Woman (1990)—which “has been on [his] and Tay’s movie list for a while.” Actually, he and his brother Jason Kelce agreed on their New Heights podcast that it was more of a “reverse Pretty Woman” with Travis “wearing nothing but a tie when Taylor comes home.” The younger Kelce then made a point of advocating for a twist on the film called Pretty Man, a concept that is semi-realized on the Showgirl track “Father Figure.” “We need to have a CEO billionaire woman be so high-class that she doesn’t know where she’s going. She doesn’t know how to drive a car,” Kelce said.
The ending of Pretty Woman and all its talk of saving princesses from towers is invoked in lead single “The Fate of Ophelia” with lyrics like, “I sat alone in my tower / You were just honing your powers.” Kelce publicly shooting his shot with Swift “felt more like I was in an ‘80s John Hughes movie, and he was standing outside of my window with a boombox saying, ‘I want to date you! Do you want to go on a date with me? I made you a friendship bracelet!’” she said while appearing on New Heights, referencing Cameron Crowe’s ‘80s coming of age film Say Anything. This song nods to that meet-cute with the album-opening line, “I heard you calling / On the megaphone.”
On “Opalite,” named for the manmade version of Kelce’s opal birthstone, there’s a hint of spirited doo-wopping reminiscent of Grease’s “Summer Nights.” But given the fact that Swift and Kelce’s relationship has already inspired a few Christmas movies, it’s hard to ignore that this song feels like an homage to that twinkly, festive way of falling in love on film.
