Taylor Swift releases 'Patient Zero' single and four-song 'Showgirl' encore edition

Taylor Swift released her new single “Patient Zero” on Friday 25 September, alongside The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore, a deluxe edition of her 2025 album carrying four new songs, Entertainment Weekly and Pitchfork reported.

The four new tracks are “Patient Zero”, “Pink Clouding”, “Babylon” and “Cleveland!”, Swift announced on Instagram on Wednesday. A day earlier, she had unveiled the single itself after a countdown on her website expired at 2pm ET on Tuesday, writing: “I’ve been impatiently waiting to tell you that my brand new single ‘Patient Zero’ will be out on September 25,” the Khaleej Times reported.

Three limited-edition CD versions of the single — standard, acoustic and piano — went on sale on her website for a 24-hour pre-order window at $3.99 each, with orders scheduled to ship on or about 13 October, according to USA Today via the Celeb Watch.

The release lands two days before the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday 27 September, where Swift has nine nominations and will receive the inaugural Artist Director Honors award, ABC News reported. A music video for “Patient Zero” is set to debut at the ceremony.

US search interest surged overnight: Google Trends logged 20,000+ searches each for “babylon lyrics” and “pink clouding lyrics” and 10,000+ for “cleveland lyrics”.

Sources

• Entertainment Weekly: https://ew.com/taylor-swift-s-big-new-music-announcement-revealed-12134999
• Pitchfork: https://pitchfork.com/story/taylor-swift-releases-four-new-songs/
• Khaleej Times: https://www.khaleejtimes.com/entertainment/taylor-swift-patient-zero-new-single-september-25
• The Celeb Watch: https://thecelebwatch.com/taylor-swift-countdown-ends-september-22-mystery-clues/
• ABC News (via Google Trends US daily trends RSS): https://abcnews.com/GMA/Culture/taylor-swift-patient-zero-music-video-2026-vmas/story?id=136720856