The new rendition of The Life of a Showgirl single is titled the “Alone in My Tower Acoustic Version”
Taylor Swift is stripping things back. Last night, the pop star unveiled “The Fate of Ophelia (Alone in My Tower Acoustic Version),” an acoustic guitar-led rendition of opening track from her latest album The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift also released the version as a limited edition single CD, which features the acoustic take and an instrumental acoustic rendition of the track. The CD is available until Oct. 31 at 4 p.m. ET.
Swift released The Life of a Showgirl, her 12th studio album, earlier this month. She didn’t share any singles ahead of the LP, but did drop a music video for “The Fate of Ophelia” following its arrival. The video first premiered as part of The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, Swift’s film that screened in theaters from Oct. 3 to Oct. 5.
The Swift-directed and written visual for the single opens on Swift as the tragic Shakespeare heroine Ophelia from Hamlet in a painting on the wall of a hotel, before it’s revealed that it’s a set. She then embodies a variety of showgirls from various eras and in elaborate settings, where she’s backed by dancers and the band from her Eras Tour. It culminates in a hotel room where Swift stars as herself.
The success of the track and the music video has had an unusual side effect. Since the video debuted, fans have flocked to Museum Wiesbaden in Germany to see Friedrich Heyser’s 1900 painting Ophelia, which appears to have served as inspiration for Swift. “We are having an absolute Ophelia run at the moment and are quite surprised and happy about it,” a museum spokesperson, Susanne Hirschmann, told The Guardian a few weeks ago.
She added, “It’s been a shock, to be honest. We have a colleague who has a friend who is a Swift fan and she noticed the video’s opening scene had a similarity [with the Heyser painting] and we thought, wow, what a coincidence—that’s exciting.”
