In “Opalite” Taylor Swift turns an artificial gemstone into an irresistible sincere love music.
There’s one thing splendidly becoming about Taylor Swift naming a music after a pretend stone. Not pretend in a derogatory sense, thoughts you, however manufactured: intentionally created moderately than found.
On “Opalite,” the third observe from her October 2025 album The Lifetime of a Showgirl, Swift makes use of the man-made opal simulant as a metaphor for the form of happiness it’s important to construct your self.
It’s a intelligent little bit of songwriting, the form of factor that makes you suppose Swift’s been jotting down phrases and phrases at any time when inspiration strikes. Which, because it seems, is strictly what she does.
Swift revealed on Capital FM that she’d been stockpiling the phrase “opalite” in her infinite lyric recordsdata after studying it was artificial, similar to diamonds may be.
The connection to her fiancé Travis Kelce was quick. Opal is the birthstone for October, when Kelce celebrates his birthday on the fifth, simply two days after the album dropped.
“Travis’s birthstone is an opal. So I’ve at all times fixated on that. I’ve at all times beloved that stone, and I assumed it was a cool metaphor, that it’s a man-made opal and happiness will also be man-made, too. In order that’s what the music is about, that juxtaposition of these two,” Swift defined throughout the interview.
However Swift’s love affair with opals stretches again additional than her relationship with the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs tight finish.
In a 2017 interview with Us Weekly, she shared a touching reminiscence: “My favourite stone is an opal as a result of once I was bullied in class, my mother used to take me to T.J. Maxx after faculty to have a look at the opal jewellery. I assumed opals had been so lovely, and one way or the other it made me really feel higher. We by no means purchased them, simply regarded.”
That element provides extra depth when you think about the music’s central thesis. Typically simply one thing lovely is sufficient to change your day.
Reuniting with Swedish manufacturing duo Max Martin and Shellback, “Opalite” is an upbeat pop rock music with Europop influences. It’s the primary time the trio labored collectively since Swift’s Popularity period in 2017, and you’ll hear why she wished them again.
Swift instructed TIME in 2014 that she selected Martin as a result of he may assist create “sonically cohesive” albums, and “Opalite” proves that chemistry hasn’t light.
The manufacturing with the drums, guitars, omnichord tones, and people infectious hooks that Martin and Shellback have constructed whole careers on sparkle, paying homage to their work on Swift’s 1989 period.
The observe is cheerful and hooky, with Swift’s vocals completely capturing the stress between previous heartbreak and cautious optimism. It’s not revolutionary; nonetheless, it makes you need to dance in your kitchen.
The music opens with Swift admitting to a nasty behavior of dwelling on previous relationships. Her brother apparently referred to as this “consuming out of the trash,” which is each hilarious and brutally correct.
She sings about dwelling with ghosts and listening to excellent {couples} spout platitudes like “when you recognize, you recognize.”
Then comes the shift. Her mum’s reassurance that issues will get higher, that she was “dancing via the lightning strikes, sleepless within the onyx night time, however now the sky is opalite.”
The imagery is inescapable. Onyx is darkish and strong, while opalite catches gentle, shifts color, gleams with risk.
The second verse seems to reference Kelce’s previous relationships, pertaining to feeling alone even once you’re with somebody who’s extra concerned about their telephone than you.
The road “you had been in it for actual, she was in her telephone” has sparked fan hypothesis about Kelce’s ex-girlfriend, sports activities journalist Kayla Nicole, whom he dated on and off for 5 years earlier than their closing break up in Might 2022.
Whether or not intentional or not, Swift contains references to former relationships of each herself and Kelce all through the music, portray an image of two individuals who needed to be taught what they didn’t need earlier than discovering what they did.
The bridge gives what could be the music’s thesis assertion: “That is only a storm inside a teacup, however shelter right here with me, my love. Thunder like a drum, this life will beat you up. That is only a momentary velocity bump, however failure brings you freedom, and I can carry you’re keen on.”
It’s reassurance with out attending to soppy, hanging on to hope whereas acknowledging that issues may be tough. The form of sentiment that solely works once you’ve been via sufficient relationship turbulence to know the distinction between real connection and simply going via the motions.
“Opalite” has been famous as considered one of Swift’s first songs to explain an actual, present relationship moderately than an summary one.
That grounding in actuality offers the observe an anchor that a few of her extra conceptual love songs lack. Kelce himself referred to as it his favorite observe from the album, saying “He loves that one” when Swift talked about it throughout an interview.
There’s additionally one thing refreshing about Swift writing from a spot of contentment moderately than chaos. The music offers with forgiving your self for relationships that didn’t work out and giving your self permission to not have all the pieces found out. After the emotional marathon of The Tortured Poets Division, “Opalite” seems like arising for air.
Regardless of not being launched as a single, “Opalite” has carried out remarkably properly. The music ranked #2 on Reddit’s PopHeads Weekly Scorching 50 chart for October 20, 2025, with 258 factors and 1,283 listeners.
It reached the highest ten in a number of international locations together with Australia, Vietnam, Switzerland, the Philippines, Denmark, the UK, Malaysia, Norway, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, and Singapore.
Within the UK, “Opalite” took the second spot on the Official Charts throughout the album’s launch week, while “The Destiny of Ophelia” topped the chart and “Elizabeth Taylor” got here third. This marked the primary time Swift occupied the highest three positions concurrently.
“Opalite” works as a result of it understands one thing important about fashionable relationships and happiness. Typically probably the most genuine factor is what you consciously select to construct.
The artificial stone turns into extra significant than a pure one exactly as a result of it represents intention and energy.
Swift described the metaphor as exploring how happiness may be created voluntarily, which feels significantly resonant in an period the place we’re continually instructed to “discover ourselves” or await the universe to ship what we’d like.
“Opalite” means that perhaps you may simply determine to make your personal gentle, craft your personal pleasure, select to be comfortable even when the world’s telling you it needs to be extra difficult than that.
It’s a pop music, positive, but it surely’s additionally a philosophy wrapped in a three-minute-fifty-five-second package deal. The truth that it’s a few man-made stone celebrating a really actual relationship is simply the form of paradox that makes nice songwriting.