It’s been quite a year for Taylor Swift.
In March, a nearly six-years-long battle ended: She announced that she bought back her masters from Shamrock Capital. (The private equity investment firm purchased them from Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in 2020, who owned them through Braun’s acquisition of Swift’s former label Big Machine Records in 2019.)
“To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it. To my fans, you know how important this has been to me — so much so that I meticulously re-recorded and released four of my albums, calling them Taylor’s Version,” she wrote at the time in a letter on her website. “The passionate support you showed those albums and the success story you turned The Eras Tour into is why I was able to buy back my music.”
After lying low professionally most of the summer, by August she made more headlines. Swift hopped on her then-boyfriend Travis Kelce’s podcast with his brother Jason, to reveal her 12th studio album – The Life of a Showgirl – would make its curtain call in October.
About two weeks later on Aug. 26, she broke the internet with the news: “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” she captioned the Instagram post of her engagement. (Later, we’d learn, thanks to her interview on The Graham Norton Show, Kelce popped the question the same day the pair recorded New Heights.)
Then October arrived and with it, The Life of a Showgirl earned the modern-day record for equivalent album units sold in its first week, ultimately spending eight non-consecutive weeks on the top of the Billboard 200 and taking the No. 1 spot on that year-end chart for 2025. Meanwhile its lead single “The Fate of Ophelia” spent eight straight weeks on top of the Hot 100.
But she wasn’t done. Swift released her tour docuseries The End of an Era along with The Eras Tour: The Final Show, just one day before her 36th birthday, which is today, Dec. 13.
So let’s celebrate Swift and all her accomplishments with 13 triumphant lyrics about life, love and perseverance from her catalog.
-
“Fearless”
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}Album: Fearless
Year: 2008
Celebratory lyric: “‘Cause I don’t know how it gets better than this / You take my hand and drag me head first, fearless / And I don’t know why, but with you, I’d dance / In a storm, in my best dress, fearless.” -
“Long Live”
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}Album: Speak Now
Year: 2010
Celebratory lyric: “Long live the walls we crashed through / How the kingdom lights shined just for me and you / I was screaming, ‘Long live all the magic we made’ / And bring on all the pretenders, I’m not afraid / Long live all the mountains we moved / I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.” -
“22”
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}Album: Red
Year: 2012
Celebratory lyric: “We’re happy, free, confused and lonely in the best way / It’s miserable and magical, oh, yeah / Tonight’s the night when we forget about the heartbreaks / It’s time, oh-oh.” -
“Shake It Off”
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}Album: 1989
Year: 2014
Celebratory lyric: “But I keep cruisin’ / Can’t stop, won’t stop groovin’ / It’s like I got this music in my mind / Sayin’, ‘It’s gonna be alright.” -
“New Romantics”
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}Album: 1989 Deluxe
Year: 2014
Celebratory lyric: “We are too busy dancin’ to get knocked off our feet / Baby, we’re the new romantics / The best people in life are free.” -
“You’re On Your Own Kid”
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}Album: Midnights
Year: 2022
Celebratory lyric: “So, make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it / You’ve got no reason to be afraid.” -
“Bejeweled”
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}Album: Midnights
Year: 2022
Celebratory lyric: “Best believe I’m still bejeweled / When I walk in the room / I can still make the whole place shimmer.” -
“The Alchemy”
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}Album: The Tortured Poets Department
Year: 2024
Celebratory lyric: “So when I touch down / Call the amateurs and cut ‘em from the team / Ditch the clowns, get the crown / Baby, I’m the one to beat.” -
“thanK you aIMee”
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}Album: The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology
Year: 2024:
Celebratory lyric: “All that time you were throwin’ punches, it was all for nothin’ / And our town, it looks so small from way up here / Screamed, ‘Thank you, Aimee’ to the night sky and the stars are stunnin’.” -
“The Fate of Ophelia”
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}Album: The Life of a Showgirl
Year: 2025
Celebratory lyric: “Keep it one hundred on the land, thе sea, the sky / Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes / Don’t care where the hell you’ve been ‘cause now you’re mine / It’s ‘bout to be the sleepless night you’ve been dreaming of.” -
“Opalite”
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}Album: The Life of a Showgirl
Year: 2025
Celebratory lyric: “But my mama told me, “It’s alright / You were dancing through the lightning strikes / Sleepless in the onyx night / But now, the sky is opalite,’ oh-oh, oh, oh, oh / Oh, my Lord / Never met no one like you bеfore / You had to make your own sunshine / But now, thе sky is opalite.” -
“Wood”
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}Album: The Life a Showgirl
Year: 2025
Celebratory lyric: “All of that bitchin’, wishing on a falling star / Never did me any good, I ain’t got to knock on wood / It’s you and me forever dancing in the dark / All over me, it’s understood, I ain’t got to knock on wood.” -
“The Life of a Showgirl”
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}Album: The Life of a Showgirl
Year: 2025
Celebratory lyric: “And all the headshots on the walls / Of the dance hall are of the bitches / Who wish I’d hurry up and die / But I’m immortal now, baby dolls / I couldn’t if I tried.”
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