American singer and producer, Taylor Swift, has officially dropped the ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ video song on YouTube. Watch the full song below.
The track was written and directed by Swift herself, and the music video for “The Fate of Ophelia” was released online Sunday night (Oct. 5), which appeared on her latest album, “The Life of a Showgirl“. The reference-packed visual sees the pop star embody multiple personas — from Shakespeare’s ill-fated Ophelia to a Golden Age Hollywood starlet, a 1960s girl group frontwoman, and finally, the modern-day Swift showgirl that fans have come to know and love.
In the simultaneous music video, Swift crawls out of an on-set recreation of Sir John Everett Millais’ iconic 1850s painting depicting Ophelia’s drowning. She performs multiple versions of a “Fate of Ophelia” stage show — channeling Marilyn Monroe in one sequence, Ronnie Spector and The Ronettes in another, and taking center stage in an Anything Goes-inspired ensemble. The clip concludes with Swift soaking in a bathtub, presumably drained after embodying so many personas — yet very much alive.
Earlier on Sunday, Swift’s team posted a short interview clip in which the singer-songwriter explains how the album art came to be.
“There was this moment in the photo shoot [with photographers Mert Alaş and Marcus Piggott] right at the end of the day, the last setup, I’m in this bathtub in this bedazzled dress,” she said. “They take my picture. I see it on the monitor. I see it pop up. Even though it was at the weirdest angle, and I’m in the bathtub, I’m just like, ‘That’s the cover.’ And it was.”
She added, “I went and looked at the picture like, ‘Yeah. That’s it.’ I think it represents to me that you’ve done all this work, you’ve done a three-and-a-half hour show, you’ve done the lead-up to it, you’ve done the warm-ups, you’ve gotten through it. Anything that could’ve gone wrong, you sidestepped. You finally get back, what do you do? You take a bath.”
“That’s what I do in those situations,” she said. “It’s like that moment of relaxation. That moment the cameras are down, the lights are off. What do you have to say? What’s your story? Who are you then? That’s really the story of this album.”
Taylor Swift Officially Drops ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ Video on YouTube: Watch Now