Taylor Swift Adds 4 Songs to ‘Showgirl’ in Sept. 25 Encore

Taylor Swift announced on September 23, 2026 that she is releasing “The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore,” an expanded edition of her 2025 album that adds four new songs as tracks 13 through 16: “Patient Zero,” “Cleveland!,” “Pink Clouding” and “Babylon.” Variety reported that pre-order pages gave up the three previously unannounced titles. The record is due on Friday, September 25. Swift’s official store listed an Encore digital download at $9.99 and a digital single of “Patient Zero” at $0.99 the same day.

The reveal landed a day after Swift announced “Patient Zero” on Tuesday, September 22 without saying what it belonged to. Variety noted that she had not put out a standalone single ahead of an album since “Me!” in 2019, and that fans had already spotted the setup: the phrase “Patient for the encore” tucked to the side of the frame in her “Opalite” video, and a pre-taped Emmys sketch in which she recited four odd phrases whose third letters spell “encore.”

The expansion reverses what Swift told fans a year ago. “The Life of a Showgirl,” her 12th studio album, arrived on October 3, 2025 with exactly 12 tracks, and on New Heights, the podcast hosted by her husband Travis Kelce, she ruled out more: “There’s not a 13th, there’s not other ones coming. Every single song is on this album for hundreds of reasons.” In her announcement she explained what changed. She travelled to Sweden to celebrate with Max Martin and Shellback, her two collaborators on the record, “but there was a studio there and we did what we do when we feel anything at all: We wrote more songs.” The four tracks, she wrote, “were born out of pure gratitude.” Swift also told fans they had given the album “the biggest first week for an album in history”; Tempo, citing Billboard, put that opening at 4.002 million album-equivalent units and a number one debut on the Billboard 200.

Several things remain unclear. Swift has not said whether the four songs will be pushed to radio, how they affect the album’s chart run, or whether physical editions of the Encore follow the digital release. Rolling Stone reported that her site shifted from sparkly orange to dark grey before the announcement and offered three CD versions of “Patient Zero,” each with a different cover of Swift dressed in black. Variety noted that Swift had not worked with Martin and Shellback between 2018’s “Reputation” and “Showgirl,” making the Sweden session the second act of a reunion fans had assumed was finished. The Encore is out Friday.