Taylor Swift releases The Fate of Ophelia as lead single

Taylor Swift released a new single, "The Fate of Ophelia," on Oct. 3 as the opening track and lead offering from her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, which is due Friday. The song reframes the figure of Ophelia from William Shakespeare's Hamlet, using the character's story as a touchstone while otherwise delivering a personal love song produced by Max Martin and Shellback.

On the single, Swift borrows Ophelia's story of grief and drowning while reshaping its endpoint. The chorus declares, "Late one night, you dug me out of my grave and saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia," and a postchorus references "your team" and the refrain "Keep it one hundred on the land, the sea, the sky." Listeners and observers have interpreted those lines as nods to Swift's fiance, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, and to sports-related language associated with him. The album's cover image, which shows Swift partially submerged with her lips above the waterline, has also been read as an Ophelia reference while signaling a different outcome for the song's narrator.

Swift previewed the project in a podcast conversation in which she alluded to Ophelia, and the album has drawn heavy...