The Fate of Ophelia

"The Fate of Ophelia" draws from Hamlet, while celebrating Taylor Swift's relationship with NFL star Travis Kelce. The song takes its cue from Ophelia, who in Shakespeare's play unravels after heartbreak and her father's murder. But where Shakespeare's heroine meets her end in the water, Swift insists on rewriting the script. "If you'd never come for me, I might have drowned in the melancholy," she sings, crediting Kelce with saving her from the emotional undertow of fame and failed relationships.

Swift's fascination with rewriting Shakespearean tragic endings goes back a long way. This is, after all, the woman who refused to let Romeo and Juliet die. "I just have this fixation on Shakespeare characters that I fall in love with, and I can't stand to see them meet a tragic demise," she told Hits Radio UK. "I can't. I don't want that to be what happened to them."

The song opens with a nod to how this particular fairy tale began: "I heard you calling on the megaphone." That's a wry callback to Kelce's public attempt to get Swift's attention on his New Heights podcast after his failed attempt to meet her (friendship bracelet in hand) at an Eras Tour show in July 2023.