Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Must Include These 33 Songs

I will travel to as many shows as my budget allows just to hear this live as many times as possible. I’ve been waiting to scream “I love you, ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?” since I first heard “Cruel Summer” at 12:05 a.m. on August 23, 2019.

I think this would be the perfect second song, because it was one of her earliest singles and it’s like, all of her songs are now our songs, you know?

Taylor Swift is not the problem. We (the fans) are the problem for continuing to let Taylor Swift ruin our lives and bank accounts with her music.

Give me Taylor sneaking around with Joe Alwyn (or whoever). Give me Taylor in cowboy boots at 16. Then give me Taylor about to commit homicide.

She’s going to have to do a costume change between performing her “doing crimes” songs and her “rewriting Shakespeare” song. During this costume change, we’ll be treated to a music video of Meredith, Olivia, and Benjamin singing about what it’s like to have Taylor clean your litter box.

This will be an especially cathartic number, as we all have always known that we belong with Taylor. She will wear a t-shirt with the name of every single person in attendance for that show.

Swift wrote “I’m enchanted to announce my next tour” on Instagram, so she’s obviously planning to perform “Enchanted.” I honestly don’t want to hear either of these songs unless they’re in this mashup from the 1989 tour. Sometimes, Taylor raises her own bar too high.

A trio of Fearless hits that represent the lifecycle of a young relationship—we loved them, they betrayed us, they moved on. And we HAVE NOT. The old Swifties can spend 10 minutes remembering what it was to be 17 again, and the new Swifties can sit down and learn some respect.

I’m using one of the best songs from 1989 as a palate cleanser here. We are washing our hands of the broken hearts of our youth and going forth to find new people to destroy us, abandon us, and leave us clinging to our Taylor Swift records on the bathroom floor.

A hard pivot! I do not want a chronological setlist of Swift’s career. I want to be surprised by every era—and 1989 to Folklore is the sharpest emotional whiplash of her entire discography. Every song on Folklore is a masterpiece, in my opinion, but these two are worthy of 100-piece symphonies.

I’m guessing Swift will probably play some version of “Cardigan” and “Willow” in reality, but not in my setlist. This will be the Folklore/Evermore mashup no one could have ever seen coming. Except for me.

This is going to be the moment in the show when she sits at the piano and gives us a little monologue about how much she loves us. She’ll freestyle some chords and say something like, “And I guess, what I’m trying to say is...thanks for always sticking by me and my...champagne problems...WINK.” And we’ll all lose our shit.

Time to pick the tempo back up. The “Shake It Off” lawsuit was dismissed in December, so we don’t have to worry about that anymore.

I would love to hear all these songs in a mashup about falling in love, hating that person, then forgetting that person. If you’re wondering where “I Know Places” is on this setlist...it’s not! And that’s OK.

Another hard pivot! This 1989 to Midnights portion will be the big dance section. She’ll probably travel to a B stage or walk through the crowds, giving everyone a high-five. “Paris” is a 3 a.m. song, but I think it deserves to see a stadium. Honestly, she could play any trio of songs from Midnights here. She could sit down and play us the whole damn album. She could write a whole new album in realtime! Endless possibilities.

Imagine the drum remix of “Holy Ground” from the Red tour and the rock remix of “I Knew You Were Trouble” from the 1989 tour coming together as one. “Holy Ground” is her best song of all time (“Cruel Summer” is second), and that is the one hill in my life that I will gleefully die on.

It still makes me angry that we were robbed of this perfect song being included on 2012's Red. It should have been a single. It should have been what I listened to when that loser from Ireland ghosted me in 2013 after telling me that he—or, whatever, nevermind. It’s a great song, and I want to see it live :)

Some fans are arguing that they’d rather have three songs than one 10-minute-long song, but Swift is so obviously proud of this version that I’d be shocked if she didn’t play it. Also, what would even be the point of releasing a song with the lyric “Fuck the patriarchy!” if you weren’t planning to have 70,000 people scream it with you?

There are a lot of people who don’t think this is her best song from 1989, and while that is an opinion, it’s a stupid one. We are out of the woods of the symbolic “Red” relationship, we are out of the woods of her “reputation” era, of covid, of waiting for her to go back on fucking tour. This song works on so many levels—we deserve to have the synth pop chorus of “ohs” and “ahs” lead us home.

If I gave you 13,000 guesses, would you have guessed that “22" would be one of the last songs on my dream setlist? Crazy, I know. But imagine, we’re nearing the end of the concert, and you think she’s already done everything she’s going to do off of Red, and then “it feels like a perfect night...” blares through the speakers. I know, I’m tearing up right now, too!

Zero idea how this mashup would work, BUT, in my brain, “You’re on Your Own Kid” brings us to “Long Live,” and the cherry on top of it all is that she Masterminded everything. This trifecta encompasses Swift’s entire career trajectory and her unending appreciation of us all. This finale will be 25 minutes long and will include fireworks, a marching band, Karyn the inflatable snake from the reputation tour, and free merch falling from drones dressed up like stars in the midnight sky. Bravo, Taylor!