Taylor Swift Used This Unique Gem To Encapsulate “Choosing Happiness” on 2025 Album

Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, was released on October 3, 2025. Less than a year after The Eras Tour wrapped up in December 2024, Taylor Swift seemed to have gotten a lot off her chest during the tour as the new album banked on lighter themes.

The second single release from The Life of a Showgirl is a song called “Opalite,” a love song about feeling content with where a relationship is currently. Ultimately, there’s lingering hurt from previous relationships, but now that’s being replaced by happiness in a new romance. It appears Swift is declaring she’s not the same artist you knew, and she’s learning to move on rather than dwell on lovers past. On February 6, the new “Opalite” music video was released.

The Meaning Behind the Lyrics of “Opalite”

“You were dancing through the lightning strikes / Sleepless in the onyx night / But now the sky is opalite”

Metaphorically, the “lightning strikes” symbolize the hurt of past relationships. The “onyx night” is darkness. The “opalite sky” is a metaphor for happiness, as Opalite stone is an ivory white mixed with blue and orange glows.

In a recent interview on Elvis Duran and The Morning Show, Taylor said the song was one of her favorites on the record. Additionally, Swift went on to say “It’s about choosing happiness in your own life. Opalite is a manmade opal, you know how they have manmade diamonds now. So I love that sort of reference and metaphor between making your own gemstone and manufacturing your own happiness, even when things aren’t going your way.”

Using glass, resin, or metal, opalite is manmade to mimic the look of the natural opal. Brilliantly, Swift made a connection between the creation of a manmade stone and generating your happiness the same way. She capitalized on that concept with a hit song on a hit record.

“Opalite” Battles for the No. 1 Spot

Currently, Taylor Swift’s “Opalite” is fighting to become a No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, sitting at No. 10. It has spent 17 weeks on the chart, debuting and peaking at No. 2. The recent release of the new music video could knock the song up a few spots on the chart. “The Fate of Ophelia,” the first single off the new album, held the No. 1 spot for 10 weeks. It currently sits at No. 5.

The Life of a Showgirl debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and held the spot for 12 nonconsecutive weeks.

As Taylor Swift’s newest single “Opalite” declares, “Life is a song / It ends when it ends / You move on.” And that seems to be precisely what she’s doing with her career.