Taylor Swift‘s “Patient Zero,” the new tune she announced yesterday, won’t be a one-song-wonder when its released later this week: Swift said today she will drop three additional new tracks this Friday as part of the expanded The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore album.
“About a year ago, you guys did a truly unfathomable thing,” Swift wrote in an Instagram message (see it below). “Something that completely blew my mind… You gave The Life of a Showgirl the biggest first week for an album in history. I took a trip to Sweden to celebrate with Max and Shellback, my two collaborators on this album.
“Really,” she continued, “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. 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 Life of a Showgirl: The Encore including four new songs is out on Friday and available to pre-order and save now.”
In addition to “Patient Zero,” the new songs included on the expanded version of her 2025 The Life of a Showgirl are “Cleveland!,” “Pink Clouding” and “Babylon.”
The new album cover features cover photography by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott. The expanded album will be Swift’s first release since “I Knew It, I Knew You” for Toy Story 5 in June.
The Encore release coincides with this weekend’s presentation to the singer-songwriter of the first MTV VMA Artist Director Honors, to be presented Sunday, September 27, at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards. The inaugural prize celebrates a sustained and influential body of work from artists who have pushed creative boundaries and developed a clear directorial voice.
Swift’s pre-taped cameo appearance during last week’s Emmy Awards, in which she joined host Mariska Hargitay in a Law & Order: Special Victims Unit parody, had Swifties scrambling to decipher the strange words “Saccharide, Ares, From The Vineyard, North or South” that Swift spoke. Maybe a clue about the release? It’s still a mystery.
Check out Swift’s Instagram post below:
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