Shining Star, Shattered: Taylor “mirrorball” Meaning, Explained Line by Line

mirrorball is Taylor Swift’s track 6 from folklore, and – like the rest of the album – it was a product of the pandemic. While in lockdown, Taylor says she got to thinking about what happens when the spotlight is no longer shining. 

The entire song is an extended metaphor for celebrity, the pedestal of fame, the facets of our personalities, and the fragility of being human. 

What do the lyrics mean, and what does it tell us about Taylor’s thoughts on celebrity and her constant reinvention? 

Here’s my full English teacher analysis of Taylor’s mirrorball meaning, line by line and metaphor by metaphor. 

Black and white image of glittering disco balls, overlaid with text: "Mirrorball lyrical analysis." This composition serves as a thematic cover for a lyrical analysis related to the song "Mirrorball" and is part of the Swiftly Sung Stories series of Folklore literary analysis essays.

mirrorball by Taylor Swift

  • Title: Mirrorball 
  • Written by: Jack Antonoff, Taylor Swift
  • Track: 6, Folklore
  • Pen: Fountain
  • Lyrics from Genius

mirrorball Song Meaning: Narrative Summary

  • Setting: Metaphorically: a dance floor with a disco ball. Physically: Taylor’s world of celebrity in lockdown. 
  • Characters: Narrator (Taylor), subject (the reader, the audience, the world at large, “you”) 
  • Mood: Fragile, reflective. 
  • Conflict: What happens when the spotlight is no longer shining? 
  • Inciting Incident: They “called off the circus” – the pandemic shut the world down, and Taylor is alone with her thoughts. 
  • Quest: Stay relevant but also stay human. 
  • Symbols & Metaphors: “mirrorball,” shattering/breaking, reflection/shine, “tiptoes” & “highest heels”, “masquerade revelers,” “circus,” “disco,” “trapeze,” “horses” & “rodeo clowns,”  
  • Theme: The pedestal of celebrity. 
  • Imagery: “mirrorball,” “when I break, it’s in a million pieces,” “on my tallest tiptoes,” “Spinning in my highest heels,” “Shining just for you,” “Drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten,” “called off the circus, burned the disco down,” 
  • Lesson: My pain is not for your pleasure. 

What Does mirrorball Mean? 

mirrorball narrates Taylor’s experience of celebrity and fame: trying to entertain, trying to stay relevant, public heartbreaks, and her place in the world when the pandemic hit. 

The central metaphor describes Taylor as a disco ball, put there to be a ‘shiny object’ to look at. But when the spotlight goes out, or the ball breaks, what happens then? 

In the Folklore Long Pond Studio Sessions she described her thought process while writing the song:

“And I just was thinking ‘ok, we have mirrorballs in the middle of a dance floor because they reflect light, they are broken a million times and that’s what makes them so shiny, we have people like that in society too, they hang there and, every time they break, it entertains us.

And when you shine a light on them, is this glittery, fantastic thing but then, a lot of the times when the spotlight isn’t on them, they’re still there, up on a pedestal, but nobody’s watching them’.”

-Taylor Swift, Folklore Long Pond Studio Sessions

mirrorball Meaning: Line by Line

Annotated portions of Taylor Swift's "Mirrorball" lyrics, noting her use of literary devices and finding hidden and alternate meanings.
The first verse reads: "I want you to know

I'm a mirrorball

I'll show you every version of yourself tonight

I'll get you out on the floor

Shimmering beautiful

And when I break, it's in a million pieces"

“I want you to know,” she begins, whispering to her reader, “I’m a mirrorball.” This is her deepest secret. She’s spilling something special.  

What is a mirrorball? It’s eye-catching, shiny, broken; a thousand mirrors reflecting everything when the light shines upon it. 

“I’ll show you every version of yourself tonight,” she says to us. She’ll reflect all the facets of us in her shine. We’ll see every angle of our emotions, our personality, our fears, and our deepest secrets in her music and lyrics.  

“I’ll get you out on the floor,” she says, alluding to a physical dancefloor, with a shimmering disco ball twirling above our heads. To ‘get out on the floor’ is to join in on the fun; to jump in and have a good time. 

The light is “shimmering beautiful” on the dancefloor, but this is also a metaphor for Taylor herself. She’s a shimmering light that brings beauty into the world. But all is not happiness and shine. 

“And when I break, it’s in a million pieces,” she says. When the mirrorball falls down, it shatters into even more broken pieces, and our view of our reflection is jagged and splintered. 

This is the central idea of the mirrorball metaphor: while it’s “on,” it’s a gorgeous experience that reflects our own wants, needs, and desires. It makes our world magical.

This is what’s expected of Taylor: we want her to shine for us, spin for us, entertain us. 

But when the disco ball turns off or breaks, it just hangs there. I no longer serves us, so we either forget about it, or want it to put itself back together and entertain us again. We want to see ourselves reflected in something beautiful, and not something broken. 

‘Don’t be broken,’ the world says to celebrities and entertainers. ‘That’s not what you’re for, you’re here to entertain us, so just do that.’ 

We don’t expect celebrities to be fallible – we expect them to be “on” all the time: spinning, shining, up on their pedestals and superhuman.  

What would happen if a disco ball shattered? We’d see ourselves reflected a million times. But we’d also be fascinated by the tiny shards. Why did it break? What happened? We need to know all the details, and inspect every piece of broken glass. 

But the glass is not ours to inspect. It doesn’t belong to us. 

Chorus: “You’ll Find Me On My Tallest Tiptoes”

Annotated portions of Taylor Swift's "Mirrorball" lyrics, noting her use of literary devices and finding hidden and alternate meanings.
The chorus reads: "Hush, when no one is around, my dear

You'll find me on my tallest tiptoes

Spinning in my highest heels, love

Shining just for you

Hush, I know they said the end is near

But I'm still on my tallest tiptoes

Spinning in my highest heels, love

Shining just for you"

“Hush,” she whispers, “when no one is around, my dear / You’ll find me on my tallest tiptoes.” 

Even when the “dancefloor” is empty, and the disco ball is no longer spinning, she’s still performing. She’s still working the hardest, even behind the scenes when no one is watching. 

She’ll be “spinning in my highest heels, love, shining just for you,” even when no one is there to witness it. She tries to make herself metaphorically ‘taller’, symbolized by the high heels. This means she is always striving, always reaching for the top. To be the best. 

“Shining just for you” toes the line between truth and satire. She does, indeed, do most everything with her fans in mind. But her life is also her own, and she is allowed to have a private life, even if she is a shimmering disco ball made to entertain. 

”Hush, I know they said the end is near” could allude to the downfall of her reputation, but it could also reflect the moment in which she wrote the song. This was 2020, during lockdown, when the “end of the world” seemed like a real possibility. 

But what she’s also alluding to is the potential end of her career. She’s explored these themes before in songs like Nothing New and The Lucky One. Fame is fragile, and when the lifespan of a pop star runs out, what will that mean for her ego, and her legacy?

“But I’m still on my tallest tiptoes,” she says, “Spinning in my highest heels, love / Shining just for you.” Even when she’s not in the spotlight, she’s still working behind the scenes to produce this massive career.

When a tree falls in the forest, does anyone hear it? When Taylor isn’t center stage, does anyone care? This is what she’s worrying about: ‘do I even matter? Or am I just here to entertain you?’

🩶 Can you pass my tricky folklore Lyrics Quiz? 🩶

Verse 2: “I can change everything about me to fit in”

Annotated portions of Taylor Swift's "Mirrorball" lyrics, noting her use of literary devices and finding hidden and alternate meanings.
The second verse reads: "I want you to know

I'm a mirrorball

I can change everything about me to fit in

You are not like the regulars

The masquerade revelers

Drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten"

I want you to know,” she whispers to us again in the second verse, “I’m a mirrorball / I can change everything about me to fit in.” 

This implies she’s a sort of shape-shifter or people-pleaser, which she discussed in detail in the Miss Americana documentary. For a time, she did everything the public dictated. She only wanted to be thought of as “good.” Her self-esteem was tied to being a “good girl.” 

In the Folklore Long Pond Studio Sessions, she also addressed this people-pleasing behavior. 

“Everybody feels like they have to be ‘on’ for certain people…everybody feels like they have to, in some ways, be duplicitous and that’s part of the human experience, but it’s also exhausting…you kind of learn that every one of us have the ability to become a shapeshifter.” 

-Taylor Swift, Folklore Long Pond Studio Sessions

She’s lost parts of herself, or given too much, in order to stay relevant and keep her popularity.

“You are not like the regulars,” she continues, “the masquerade revelers / drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten.” 

Us – the readers, or possibly the “true” fans – are not the ones who will be entertained when she breaks. 

This likely alludes to the Snake Gate KimYe drama, where Taylor was “canceled” over the doctored phone recording. Twitter was full of “masquerade revelers / drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten.”

But it’s also a more general commentary on cancel culture and the twisted nature of celebrity. As she elaborated on the broken mirrorball metaphor: ”we have people like that in our society too…and every time they break, it entertains us.” 

This also alludes to Sylvia Plath’s famous poem, “Lady Lazarus.” The poem is about Sylvia’s many suicide attempts and mental health, which is also what Mirrorball is about: the fragility of the human mind.

Two portions of Plath’s poem directly remind me of Mirrorball

“What a million filaments.   

The peanut-crunching crowd   

Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot——

The big strip tease.   

Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands   

My knees.

I may be skin and bone”

-Sylvia Plath, “Lady Lazarus”

The “peanut-crunching crowd” of Plath’s poem gawks at her suicide attempts: her scars laid bare for all to see. This description of vulnerability for entertainment is highly similar to “the masquerade revelers / Drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten”. 

The “revelers” or “peanut-crunching crowds” are “drunk” on the entertainment value of someone’s downfall, which is sick and twisted, but also entirely true of our modern society. 

Bridge: “I’ve Never Been a Natural, All I Do is Try, Try, Try”

Annotated portions of Taylor Swift's "Mirrorball" lyrics, noting her use of literary devices and finding hidden and alternate meanings.
The bridge reads: "And they called off the circus, burned the disco down

When they sent home the horses and the rodeo clowns

I'm still on that tightrope

I'm still trying everything to get you laughing at me

And I'm still a believer, but I don't know why

I've never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try

I'm still on that trapeze

I'm still trying everything to keep you looking at me"

The bridge addresses the modern-day setting directly: “They called off the circus, burned the disco down.” This is the pandemic sweeping the world, canceling every event (including Taylor’s Lover tour), and ‘burning’ “the disco down.” 

It could also allude to her “cancellation” in between the 1989 and reputation eras. If they “burned the disco down,” and she’s at the center, they metaphorically burned her down.

The disco is where Taylor gets to shine: she’s the mirrorball that hangs above our heads, in the center, with a spotlight on her. 

“They sent home the horses and the rodeo clowns” also alludes to the pandemic. If Taylor is the acrobat taking center stage, they send home her colleagues: the “horses and the rodeo clowns.” 

But Taylor is “still on that tightrope.” She’s not going home, because she needs the feedback of people watching. 

“I’m still trying everything to get you laughing at me,” she says. She’s not doing well without being out in the world. 

She said in the Long Pond documentary: “I realize here I am, writing all this music, still trying, and I know I have an excuse to sit back and not do something, but I’m not. And I don’t know why that is.” 

She can’t sit still. She has to keep working, even when the rest of the world quits. 

“I’m still a believer, but I don’t know why,” she says, reflecting on why she keeps working and making music. She still believes in herself, and her career, even with all the tumultuous and ruinous things that have happened over the years. 

“I’ve never been a natural,” she says candidly, “all I do is try, try, try.” This not only directly references this is me trying, but it also reflects the tremendous amount of work and self-improvement she’s done throughout her career. Her voice, her writing, her dancing, her business tactics: she’s simply worked very hard, even when things didn’t come naturally to her. 

“I’m still on that trapeze,” she says, “I’m still trying everything to keep you looking at me.” She can’t stop performing, even after everyone has gone home. She wants eyes on her, and she fights with that internally. 

Outro: “Because I’m a Mirrorball”

Annotated portions of Taylor Swift's "Mirrorball" lyrics, noting her use of literary devices and finding hidden and alternate meanings.
The outro reads: "Because I'm a mirrorball

I'm a mirrorball

And I'll show you every version of yourself tonight"

In the previous bridge, she said: “I’m still trying everything to keep you looking at me.” Then the outro replies: “because I’m a mirrorball.” 

It’s because she’s a mirrorball that she wants the attention. She wants people to see all the shiny reflections (what her music means to us), and she’ll show us pieces of ourselves reflected in her. 

But that doesn’t mean that we’re entitled to be entertained when she breaks. We’re reflected in the mirrorball: we don’t own it. It’s not ours to do with what we please.

We can only see ourselves in it: we are not, ourselves, the disco ball. 

This is also reflective of another portion of Plath’s Lady Lazarus: 

“I am your opus,

I am your valuable,   

The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.   

I turn and burn.

Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash—

You poke and stir.

Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——”

-Sylvia Plath, “Lady Lazarus”

Taylor describes it as a mirrorball, while Plath describes it as “the pure gold baby.” They both mean the same thing: something valuable that we think belongs to us. 

This is the most important duality and boundary Taylor is setting in the lyrics. We can enjoy the shininess when the spotlight is turned on, but when it’s off, it’s not ours to shine flashlights at. She is not our “pure gold baby”. 

The mirrorball turns when it wants to turn, and stops when it wants to stop. 

The irony is that she doesn’t want to stop turning – to stop shining . She wants to shine on her own terms. She can do it with a broken heart, but that doesn’t mean we get to demand she perform.

🩶 Can you pass my tricky folklore Lyrics Quiz? 🩶

mirrorball Meaning: Final Thoughts 

This is likely the most delicate and vulnerable song Taylor has ever written about her career. She’s alluded to these themes before in songs like Nothing New and The Lucky One, but never with such precise metaphors. 

Here, not only does she address her constant reinvention, but she also shines a light on what happens when the spotlight goes out. In Nothing New, she worried about what would happen if her novelty wore off, and The Lucky One addressed the perils of fame. 

But here, she’s addressing both her need to be in the spotlight and her fears of it going out. It’s the full spectrum: her need for attention, but with boundaries of privacy and respect. 

She walks a tightrope in this song of what it means to need fame, what it takes to keep it, and what it’s like to have your entire life illuminated for all too see. 

We’ll get another perspective on these same themes in I Can Do it With A Broken Heart, which lets us in on what’s going on behind the scenes. But in both narratives, two things remains the same: the crowd “chanting ‘more!'”, and the broken, shattered piece on the floor.

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