Taylor Swift has shared her bittersweet new single ‘Patient Zero’, alongside three more songs on ‘The Life Of A Showgirl: The Encore’.
The expanded edition of Swift’s 2025 album arrived today (September 25), adding ‘Patient Zero’, ‘Cleveland!’, ‘Pink Clouding’ and ‘Babylon’ to the original tracklist.
All four songs were written with Max Martin and Shellback after Swift travelled to Sweden to celebrate the record-breaking success of ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’.
Lead single ‘Patient Zero’ is a glossy pop track built around electronic percussion and a swooning string line, with Swift using infection as a metaphor for a destructive relationship.
She addresses another woman caught in her ex-partner’s orbit, warning her about the “devil” beneath his halo and offering herself as the original case who survived the same experience. “If you’re sick of him, I got you,” she sings, before declaring herself “patient zero”.
Swift announced ‘Patient Zero’ earlier this week after changing various instances of the letter ‘O’ to zeroes across her social media, prompting fans to wonder whether an entirely new era was beginning.
The accompanying music video, starring Dakota Johnson and Colin Farrell, will premiere at the MTV VMAs this Sunday (September 27). Swift directed the video herself, with Oscar-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki behind the camera.
The second new track, ‘Cleveland!’, is driven by live drums and bright, ’80s-style keyboards, and it finds Swift poking fun at the criticism directed at her while celebrating her relationship with husband Travis Kelce.
A spoken section sees Swift joking that everyone only needs to find one person who does not find them “completely insufferable” – before announcing that she has found hers.
‘Pink Clouding’, meanwhile, is a more reflective slice of shimmering synth-pop, with layered vocals and a buoyant pulse. Its title refers to the euphoric state sometimes experienced during the early stages of recovery, and Swift uses the phrase as a metaphor for a relationship she entered while still emotionally unsettled.
Closing the new quartet is ‘Babylon’, which begins with acoustic guitar before opening into a fuller, atmospheric arrangement. The song follows a character who has chased money, freedom and status only to become consumed by nostalgia for the life and family he left behind.
Announcing the four tracks earlier this week, Swift said: “I took a trip to Sweden to celebrate with Max and Shellback, my two collaborators on this album. Really we just wanted to reflect and take in how grateful we were for the moment we were in, but there was a studio there and we did what we do when we feel anything at all: We wrote more songs.”
She added: “I hope you love them, because they were born out of pure gratitude for your exuberance for and celebration of the album we made.”
The original ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’ arrived last October and went on to give Swift the biggest first week for an album in US chart history.
NME gave the album three stars, writing: “To seek escapism is not a sin, but the best pop music makes the personal feel like life or death.”
‘Patient Zero’ is also Swift’s first new single since she shared ‘I Knew It, I Knew You’ for the Toy Story 5 soundtrack in June.
At the VMAs this weekend, Swift will receive the inaugural MTV VMA Artist Director Honors award before unveiling the full ‘Patient Zero’ video. She has previously directed videos including ‘The Fate Of Ophelia’, ‘Fortnight’, ‘Anti-Hero’ and ‘Cardigan’, as well as 2021’s All Too Well: The Short Film.
