“It’s like relearning the English language.”
On May 9 at 3:02 p.m., news reached Vulture (Slack) headquarters that Taylor Swift had radically rearranged the Eras Tour set list. Chaos ensued. The first show in the European leg of her tour, held in Paris (of Midnights fame), featured new visuals, new outfits, and several revised eras, including the addition of her 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department. When did she have time to do this, and why weren’t the Swifties notified in a series of overengineered puzzles? What follows is a transcript of innocent fans (Vulture writers and editors) processing the new set list raw in real time. The old Eras Tour can’t come to the phone.
Lover
➼ “‘Archer’ cut!!!”
➼ “Wait, what if she cuts ‘cardigan’?”
➼ “This could be a bloodbath.”
➼ “I wonder if the Eras Tour movie was also an experiment to see how the show would be.”
➼ “I think everything not in the movie will be cut.”
➼ “WHAT IS HAPPENING.”
Fearless
➼ “My jaw is on the ground.”
Red
➼ “‘This is not Taylor’s version!!’”
➼ “The way I am inconsolable and crying watching this stream.”
➼ “I have the old set list memorized. It’s like relearning the English language.”
➼ “‘You are so present right now’ as I watch three people livestream it on their phones.”
➼ “If she cut evermore entirely, I would die of laughter.”
➼ “If she cut ‘All Too Well (10 Minute Version),’ I would self-immolate.”
➼ “We cannot let this overwritten monstrosity overwrite the legacy of a perfect song.”
➼ “I’m so excited for new outfits and then TikToks of people re-creating them.”
➼ “This song should be 20 minutes, actually.”
Reputation
➼ “These are new visuals?!”
➼ “She should make a dancer do the Post Malone face tattoos for ‘Look What You Made Me Do.’”
Speak Now
➼ “WHERE IS EVERMORE.”
➼ “New flower!!!!”
➼ “It’s crazy that ‘Castles Crumbling’ is getting the same treatment as ‘Nothing New.’”
➼ “I bet she’s merging folklore and evermore into one era.”
➼ “She’s gonna cut her ‘betty’ speech down to just ‘no homo.’”
folklore/evermore
➼ “Let’s pray she cuts the damn christmas trees.”
➼ “‘cardigan’ lives to see another day!?!?!”
➼ “Sorry to ‘the 1.’”
➼ “This supports the idea that ‘the 1’ was about Matty.”
➼ “I hate everything about Matty because it ruins all my Karlie Kloss theories.”
➼ “I canceled my barre class. This is too important.”
➼ “To me, ‘champagne problems’ is about the movie The Family Stone.”
➼ “TTPD is so evermore-ish that this makes sense tbh.”
➼ “Vulture investigates: Was Marjorie a good singer?”
➼ “Does she close the era on ‘willow’ now???”
➼ “WE WON.”
1989
➼ “I have watched the concert on Disney+ like five times, in theaters twice, and then in person at Met Life once. In terms of watching clips, like hundreds of times.”
➼ “Omfg the outfit is two colors!!!”
➼ “I am howling.”
➼ “This is fucking up my day.”
➼ “I can’t begin to fathom what the surprise songs will be.”
➼ “I think the surprise song will be something TTPD.”
➼ “I think she will for sure end on ‘I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.’”
The Tortured Poets Department
➼ “THESE VISUALS.”
➼ “She read the traffic-violation list.”
➼ “SHE’S OPENING WITH ‘BUT DADDY, I LOVE HIM.’”
➼ “I wanna cry, but there’s no tears left.”
➼ “FUCK YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”
➼ “I NEED TO GET TICKETS.”
➼ “‘But Daddy I Love Him’ and ‘So High School’ are literally my top two. I play them in this order every day.”
➼ “She needs to release this remix of ‘Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?’”
➼ “The clear, close-up clips of her singing these lyrics are gonna go so hard.”
➼ “Taylor, please do the rock album.”
➼ “TTPD is alien.”
➼ “She looks like SpongeBob at the Super Bowl.”
➼ “I am willing to say this jacket is the ugliest thing Taylor has ever worn ever.”
➼ “This woman loves FILM!”
➼ “How do you sit through Midnights after that?”
Surprise Songs — “Paris” and “loml”
➼ “It’s crazy how poor Midnights has aged.”
➼ “So Obamacore.”
➼ “‘Parees!’”
➼ “Her love of geography really lends itself to the surprise-song concept.”
➼ “I think every other surprise song is gonna be TTPD.”
Midnights
➼ “It’s so weird to end on Midnights after doing one of the greatest things I have ever seen.”
➼ “Oh, I love this song. Sorry for my Taylor slander.”
➼ “I’m a Midnights apologist.”
➼ “It’s just weird because these songs are now 18 months old, and outside “Antihero” and sorta “Karma,” most of them didn’t really have a cultural impact.”
➼ “I do like how it’s fully a Joe Alwyn breakup album and she just lied.”
➼ “The only reason ‘Vigilante Shit’ made the cut was because of the choreo.”
➼ “Did the songs she cut have boring choreography?”
“Yeah, kind of, except ‘tolerate it.’ Can you please explain how you’ve avoided all this for a year? In a way, I am jealous you’re experiencing all this for the first time.”
“It feels like watching the final-season premiere of a show that’s been on for years.”
➼ “I can’t believe no cuts to Midnights. I bet we’ll see a few more cuts as the tour goes on.”
➼ “She made Travis Kelce join that Ryan Murphy show so she can keep singing, ‘Karma is that guy on the screen.’”
➼ “This has been fun. I need to do my real job now.”
➼ “I’m gonna go touch grass.”
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