How to play Opalite by Taylor Swift
Opalite is the 3rd track on Taylor Swift’s 2025 album The Life of a Showgirl. Released worldwide on October 3, you can see how swift we are at MGT ; we got this chart up on the same day - wow! Opalite is an ideal song for guitar-toting Swifties and works well on both electric or steel-string acoustic. Get it while it’s hot!
Chords: C D in the intro, then C in 3rd position, Dsus in 5th pos, Em in 7th pos ; Chorus is G Em Am D7
Do I have to play the suggested chords in the Verse? They sound great on an electric but will be harder to play on an acoustic. If you feel they are awkward; if they don’t work for you then just use standard open-position chords but try sliding the C shape up two frets (to the 3rd fret) to create a good Dsus shape.
Pick or Fingers? Pick will work best and creates the tone you hear on the recording
Acoustic or Electric? Definitely a steel-string song. The sliding chords will work best on electric guitar but a good acoustic will also work for Opalite
Lead guitar : there are some basic lead fills on the 5th and 6th strings in the Chorus. These are shown in small ‘cue’ notes below the rhythm. It’s pretty simple stuff and doesn’t warrant a full TAB ; the notation is tidier and more direct.
How does the timing work? The rhythms in Opalite are standard crotchet and quaver patterns. The main thing to be mindful of is tie over to the 1st downbeat in the two-bar patterns; remember a ‘tie’ adds time values together to create a longer duration.
Relevant pages in Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 : To learn more about the chords and rhythms used in Opalite check out pages 5 - 6, 8, 10, 12 - 13, 20 - 21 and 34.
Need a bit of help?
Modern Guitar Chord Styles 1 is the perfect companion for our song guides. It will teach you how to read the rhythm slash notation used in our charts (and in professional theatre and studio charts) and is specially designed to help beginners speed up their chord changes, master strumming patterns, and many other techniques.
