Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Must Include These 33 Songs

The tour starts in Arizona tonight, and I'm begging her to kick off the show of my dreams with "Cruel Summer."

By Lauren Tousignant | November 4, 2022 | 7:45pm

Entertainment Music

Taylor Swift’s long-awaited, a little chaotic, insanely anticipated tour is finally, FINALLY, here. Swift kicks off her The Eras Tour tonight at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. Huge if you’re a fan, and just another weekend if you’re not. I feel like I did the day my parents took me on my first trip to Disney World. I was 5 years old and so excited that I peed my pants on the Dumbo ride. I feel similarly now!

Since the tour announcement late last year, Swifties have been trying to guess/predict/manifest her setlist. Swift herself kind of confirmed that “Delicate” will be included. A few social media videos this week, filmed outside the stadium while Swift was rehearsing, seemed to confirm that “Style,” “My Tears Ricochet,” and “You Belong With Me” will be included, among a few others. And at midnight on Thursday, Swift released four previously unreleased songs (but still no “Hits Different”)—so that’s four more songs she may or may not include!

We’re hours away from finding out whether she’ll perform the 10-minute version of “All Too Well” or if “Our Song” made the cut, whether any of the 3 a.m. songs from Midnights will be included (they all should), and whether Karyn, our beloved reputation-era snake, will join Swift onstage. I would pay to listen to Taylor Swift cough so I am truly (mostly) fine with whatever she chooses to perform—though if she doesn’t play “Cruel Summer,” I will set myself on fire.

Swift’s shows have historically been two hours long, but I need this tour to give us at least three: Hypothetically, for the sake of the lengthy setlist I’m envisioning, but also in real life, for the sake of me finally getting to scream the full bridge of “Champagne Problems” with other humans instead of while driving around alone back in my hometown. So, I’ve whittled down Swift’s 229 songs (per Rob Sheffield’s ranking in Rolling Stone, which I deeply disagree with, but that’s a conversation for a different day) to 33, which I think is a nice number because she will be 33 on the Eras tour.

My choices will be upsetting to some people. My setlist is hectic, it’s chaotic, and it has a rhyme and reason that really only makes sense to me and my inner children. There are some glaring omissions and some true wild cards that will likely never get to experience the privilege of being performed live 🙁 But this is my dream. It is also the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Good luck to Taylor. Please perform “Cruel Summer.”

1. “Cruel Summer”

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.

2. “Our Song”

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?

3. “Anti-Hero”

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.

4-5. “Vigilante Shit”/”I Did Something Bad”

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.

6. “Love Story”

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.

7. “You Belong With Me”

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.

8-9. “Enchanted”/“Wildest Dreams”

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.

10-12. “The Way I Loved You”/“Forever & Always”/“Mr. Perfectly Fine”

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.

13. “Blank Space”

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.

14-15. “Betty”/“August”

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.

16-17. “Ivy”/“My Tears Ricochet”

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.

18. “Champagne Problems”

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.

19-21. “Shake It Off”/“Style”/“Bad Blood”

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.

22-24. “Bejeweled”/“Paris”/“Lavender Haze”

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.

25-26. “Holy Ground”/“I Knew You Were Trouble”

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.

27. “I Bet You Think About Me”

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 🙂

28. “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)“

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?

29. “Out of the Woods”

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.

30. “22"

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!

31-33. “Long Live”/“You’re On Your Own, Kid”/“Mastermind”

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!