An embattled Taylor Swift dropped her new Cats song at exactly 12:01 a.m. Friday morning. As previously reported, “Beautiful Ghosts” isn’t sung by Swift’s character, Bombalurina. Instead, it will be sung by Francesa Hayward’s Victoria in the film and then reprised by Judi Dench’s Old Deuteronomy before being sung over the credits by Swift. The song was written by Swift and Andrew Lloyd Weber. According to Weber, Swift wrote almost all the lyrics in the room immediately after hearing the song for the first time.
Meanwhile, Swifties have started a Change.org petition to get Scooter Braun et al. to quit being (alleged) assholes and let Taylor play her pre-Lover songs at the American Music Awards and in her Netflix documentary. Gigi Hadid and Tinashe leant their support on Twitter, and Halsey sang “Mean” in her Instagram stories as well as providing a statement decrying the actions of Big Machine and the Carlyle Group. Whether or not Taylor Swift’s considerable fanbase can vanquish private equity remains to be seen.
