What’s the quietest portion of The Eras Tour? It seems like quite a deluded question. Amongst the Swifties with sequinned-packed bodysuits, each speck of glitter counts as another hour spent at a sewing machine to replicate their idol Taylor Swift’s Versace masterpiece; a buzzing second-generation Swiftie is flicking a friendship bracelet onto their tiny wrist. Maybe it’s when the clock appears. Or when the confetti coats the floor after the party. However, the proper answer is during the surprise song segment.
Each night, at home, Swifties scour Instagram lives for that segment slotted perfectly between 1989 and the closing era: Midnights. It’s mainly because while The Eras Tour plays out 152 times across five continents, every part replicates except for the acoustic session. And as we’ve seen through recent times, anything goes! Taylor went from crossing off songs from her discography one by one to combining two to create a mashup, leaving us in a constant lurch about what she would do!
Taylor is a genius. We know that extremely well by now. But by bringing mashups into the acoustic session, she’s not only able to create new stringed arrangements for songs that have been our backing track for years! She’s also able to create new stories for them. She’s applying the songs she wrote during her teens, twenties, and even early thirties to what she’s going through now. It’s like gluing diaries from long ago to ones written just yesterday, merging her past and current self. If that isn’t a masterful reflection, we don’t know what is. We’ve decided to pick five mashups she’s done thus far that show that stroke of genius!
‘White Horse’ and ‘Coney Island’
Taylor loves herself a thunderstorm, and Australians do, too. In a nailbiting back and forth with the weather during Sydney, night one of the Eras Tour, where a possible cancellation was held in the air as thunder rattled near the area, the show had to be delayed. Sabrina Carpenter’s pre-show performance cut means that by the time fans are back in their seats, Taylor is the only one who has taken to the stage. That was until she wasn’t. Sabrina’s tiny frame popped onto the stage in Swiftie-Esq sequins and a half-do. She strutted down the catwalk to greet all 80,000 folks. This mashup of ‘White Horse’ and ‘Coney Island’ is special for Sabrina as she’s a die-hard fan, a grayscale cover from a younger version of her circulating YouTube.
Lost again with no surprises
‘Coney Island’
Disappointments, close your eyes
And it gets colder and colder
When the sun goes down
We’ll start with the basics of why this mashup works. It’s in the tweeny blonde next to a towering Taylor, not just because she’s Sabrina Carpenter. It’s more so what she represents. ‘White Horse’ is obviously one of Taylor’s OG songs, coming off of Fearless, the second album she ever brought out. That was back in 2008, 16 years ago (and we definitely don’t want to think about that!) As we said, Sabrina was just a youngin back then, and most of us were, too. So it’s both like she’s a prodigy of Taylor while also illustrating to us a version of Taylor just starting out singing with an older version of herself, which is very much now a titan in the music industry.
Then, from a lyrical standpoint, it’s an innocent, wide-eyed Taylor losing hope in people against an older her who has made mistakes where she was the one who took others for granted.
Maybe I was naive, got lost in your eyes
‘White Horse’
And never really had a chance
My mistake, I didn’t know to be in love
You had to fight to have the upper hand
‘Haunted’ and ‘exile’
There’s a reason why the entirety of the Swiftie internet community hated Australians at some point. This mashup of ‘Haunted’ and ‘exile’ was one of the reasons, as Taylor’s creativity is off the charts there! The acoustic number took place in Sydney during their night three.
Stood there and watched you walk away
‘Haunted’
From everything we had
But I still mean every word I said to you
He will try to take away my pain
And he just might make me smile
But the whole time, I’m wishing he was you instead
Sat at the acoustic session piano with scrawling flowers decorating the instrument, the lyrics for ‘Haunted’ are the first to spiral out. What’s compelling about this mashup is from the perspective of ‘Haunted,’ it’s about still having those rose-colored glasses on even amid a relationship breaking. Then, of course, on ‘exile,’ there’s the famous bridge between Justin Vernon and Taylor, where she’s pointing out that the signs leading to the breakup Ville were there.
With that, too, it’s like ‘Haunted’ is that first breakup of young love where you have some hope it’s going to be okay in the end. ‘exile,’ however, is that protective shield where you’ve been there before and therefore would instead exit much quickly to avoid any more emotional fallout. Interestingly, to add to the lyrical parallels, ‘Haunted’ starts with “You and I walk a fragile line,” whereas ‘exile’ has “We always walked a very thin line.” They both draw comparisons of the same type of situation where there’s love loss.
I can see you standing, honey
‘exile’
With his arms around your body
Laughin’, but the joke’s not funny at all
And it took you five whole minutes
To pack us up and leave me with it
Holdin’ all this love out here in the hall
‘Mine’ and ‘Starlight’
Mashups aren’t just an Australian thing, as Taylor Swift also took the tradition to Singapore, hence upping the stadium’s romanticism with ‘Mine’ and ‘Starlight’ on night one.
Do you remember all the city lights on the water?
‘Mine’
You saw me start to believe for the first time
You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter
You are the best thing that’s ever been mine
It’s not all about falling out of love. Sometimes, it’s also about that serendipitous feeling of magnetism between two people. If anyone can write about that emotion, it’s Taylor, as we all know. In a combination of ‘Mine’ and ‘Starlight,’ Taylor joins the prior’s bridge with the latter’s. With ‘Mine,’ it’s talking about that moment of anxiety where you question if patterns will repeat, then it doesn’t because you can finally trust and fall into another person.
Then, it’s interesting that the lyric that links them is “He’s talkin’ crazy,” as if she still can’t quite believe he’s supporting her in this way. As if she still can’t believe that he’s staying. But when she gets her mind around it in ‘Starlight,’ too, she finally goes all in, singing, “we could get married / Have ten kids and teach ’em how to dream.”
Can’t remember what song it was playin’ whеn we walked in
‘Starlight’
The night wе snuck into a yacht club party
Pretendin’ to be a duchess and a prince
‘Sparks Fly’ and ‘gold rush’
Perhaps we should’ve seen it coming as Taylor’s acoustic dress was yellow during night five of Singapore’s Eras Tour, matching the color scheme of a ‘Sparks Fly’ and ‘gold rush’ mashup.
My mind forgets to remind me you’re a bad idea
‘Sparkls Fly’
You touch me once and it’s really somethin’
You find I’m even better than you imagined I would be
As we were saying, Taylor Swift loves good color symbolism. Perhaps that’s the most prevalent reason for the different color palettes for each era. Hence, we are buying more beads than we probably must. Thanks, Taylor! At least we’ve got our organization down to the finest point, having a grid for each era. Then, think about the track ‘Sparks Fly.’ What color do you associate with it? Probably gold, right? Due to the golden ombre fringe dress from the Speak Now Tour. Then, obviously, that color is slotted into the title of the next track with ‘Gold Rush.’ Straightaway, we’re associating them together because of this color matching.
However, while both talk about the gooey feeling a crush induces, one represents the fearless behavior of pursuing one’s crush. The other, ‘gold rush,’ talks about insecurity and doubt, wondering if you’re good enough for that other person. Or are we just foolish in thinking they might like us back?
What must it be like to grow up that beautiful?
‘Gold Rush’
With your hair falling into place like dominoes
My mind turns your life into folklore
I can’t dare to dream about you anymore
‘Fifteen’ and ‘You’re On Your Own, Kid’
Then, if we backtrack on a Taylor Swift-centric night in Singapore (yes, that means we’re at night four of Singapore’s Eras Tour!), we have the mother of all mashups thus far. At least, that’s what we’re coining the nostalgic combination of ‘Fifteen’ and ‘You’re on Your Own, Kid.’
When all you wanted was to be wanted
‘Fifteen’
Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now
Back then, I swore I was gonna marry him someday
But I realized some bigger dreams of mine
Taken off of Fearless, ‘Fifteen’ is straight out of the mind of high schooler Taylor, exploring the halls and transitioning her worth from boys into herself and, thereby, her career. When accompanying this track, ‘You’re On Your Own, Kid’ explores the theory that one never truly outgrows high school. Instead, the fears and doubts created there torment us later on.
Even more so, as Taylor touched on this in the past, especially in the ‘If You’re Anything Like Me’ poem attached to reputation, she thought that now having popularity could fill the void of the lonesome days back then. The poem, after all, reads: “No amount of friends at 25 will fill the empty seats at the lunch tables of your past.” It provides a conversation between Taylor’s 30-something self and her 15-year-old self.
I see the great escape, so long, Daisy May
‘You’re On Your Own, Kid’
I picked the petals, he loves me not
Something different bloomed, writing in my room
I play my songs in the parking lot
DIY: Eras Mashup Edition
Even though our 13-scrawled Queen’s brain perfectly comes up with mashup ideas that foretell their own story, that doesn’t stop us from coming up with our own, too. What’s your ideal Taylor mashup? Let us know over on Twitter @thehoneypop!
Need more time than just a few Midnights? Taylor Swift The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) just came to Disney+. Not only is it the total three-hour run-time of the concert, but it also includes special features. First, ‘Wildest Dreams,’ ‘The Archer,’ and ‘Long Live’ are back in their setlist slot, having been taken out for theatre viewing. Then, nothing says “surprise” more than an additional surprise song segment at the end of the concert film. Straight after the fan-filled credits, there’s a sultry version of ‘I Can See You,’ Lover’s ‘Death By A Thousand Cuts,’ OG classic ‘Our Song,’ and then a piano phone-lit version of ‘You Are In Love.’
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT TAYLOR SWIFT:
FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TIKTOK | TWITTER | YOUTUBE