Donna Kelce is celebrating son Travis Kelce’s 36th birthday with an assist from his fiancée, Taylor Swift.
In an Instagram Story shared on Sunday, October 5, Donna, 72, reposted a tribute from Travis and brother Jason Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast that included various (and adorable) throwback photos of the sibling duo. “Happy birthday, Travis!!!” she wrote.
Donna set the upload to Swift’s “Opalite,” which Travis shared is his favorite track of the pop star’s 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, released on Friday, October 3.
“I had a bad habit of missing lovers past / My brother used to call it, ‘Eating out of the trash,’” Swift, 35, sings, seemingly mentioning her brother, Austin. “It’s never gonna last / I thought my house was haunted, I used to live with ghosts / And all the perfect couples said, ‘When you know, you know,’ / And, ‘When you don’t, you don’t.’”
She adds, “You were dancing through the lightning strikes / Sleepless in the onyx night / But now the sky is opalite / Oh, oh-oh-oh-oh, oh, my Lord / Never met no one likе you before / You had to make your own sunshinе.”
Swift has since revealed that the tune, the third song on the album, is inspired by her fiancée. (The couple shared the news of their engagement in August.)
“He loves that one,” Swift said of Travis during a Friday interview on the U.K.’s Capital FM radio station. “I have favorite words, favorite phrases [and] things I’ll put in an endless file of lyrics that I’m constantly going to go and cherry-pick from when I’m writing.”
Swift went on to add “opalite” to that list, explaining that she learned “it’s actually a man-made opal.”
“Opal can be man-made just like diamonds, and so, Travis’ birthstone is an opal,” she shared. “I’ve always fixated on that, [and] I’ve always loved that stone. I thought it was kind of a cool metaphor that, like, it’s a man-made opal and happiness can also be man-made, too. That’s what the song is about, the juxtaposition of those two.”
“Opalite” is not the only Life of a Showgirl tune that details Swift’s romance with the Kansas City Chiefs tight end. Her songs “Wish List,” “Honey,” “Wood” and “The Fate of Ophelia” also depict their relationship, which began in summer 2023.
“This song has some of my favorite moments in it, like, there’s a post-hook section that goes, ‘Keep it 100 on the land, the sea, the sky / pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes,’” Swift said of “The Fate of Ophelia” on the U.K.’s Magic radio station on Friday. “When we wrote that, I was like, ‘Yes! This is why I do music.’ This is a song about feeling for a long time that you might have met a similar fate to Ophelia, who was driven mad over the years, slowly, by love.”
She continued, “Instead, we reference her fate, but we talk about someone saving you from that fate and how euphoric that feels to look at … and feel like you’ve been rescued by this fortuitous turn of events where you end up finding a person that changed that for you.”
The Life of a Showgirl is available now.
