Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Setlist Predictions: ELLE Editors Take Their Best Guess
Have you fully recovered from the battle that was securing tickets for Taylor Swift’s upcoming Eras Tour? If not, I hope you’ve at least licked your wounds, because there’s about to be a whole lot of tour content coming your way. This Friday, Swift is kicking off her first headlining tour in five years in Glendale, Arizona, and the forthcoming Eras Tour promises to be a “a journey through the musical eras of my career (past and present!),” according to Swift’s Instagram. As we inch closer to the first show, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Namely, what is she possibly going to play?
Since Swift toured her 2017 album, Reputation, she’s put out four original albums (Lover, Folklore, Evermore, and Midnights) as well as two re-released albums (Fearless and Red), which both include a number of brand-new songs. At this point, her discography has ballooned to more than 200 tracks, and somehow, she’s going to whittle it down to create a setlist that will delight long-time Swifties and new fans; include her greatest hits and recent bops; and be succinct enough that she can perform it over and over again for at least the next six months.
It’s a Herculean task, and naturally, a few Swift-obsessed ELLE editors wanted to take a stab at it. Madison Feller, ELLE.com senior writer/editor, and Sam Maude, ELLE assistant to the editor-in-chief, both presented their predictions for the Eras setlist, while Carine Lavache, ELLE.com senior social media editor, analyzed and chose a winner. Below, they present their best arguments for what might make it onto the Swift stage and why they’ll be devastated if certain songs don’t make the cut. Listen to the full conversation here.
Rules:
As with any good competition, Madison and Sam established a few rules before diving in.
- Each setlist can only contain 20 songs total, including an encore, if you’d like to add one. For reference, Swift’s last tour was her longest setlist at 19 songs.
- If you want to include “All Too Well (10 Minute Version),” it only needs to count as one song, even though it’s the length of roughly three. (This is pie-in-the-sky thinking, but it’s our game after all.)
- Mash-ups are allowed but must constitute only half of your total list.
Initial Thoughts
Madison Feller: Putting together my setlist, I really was like, I don’t know how she’s going to do this, because this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Sam, I feel like you had a similar experience.
Sam Maude: Yeah, I spent a three-and-a-half hour plane ride in turmoil. I’m sure the person next to me was like, what is he doing? Very, very difficult experience here.
Madison Feller: Carine is going to tell us which one she thinks is the best, so Carine, do you want to talk about how much of a fan you are? Have you ever seen Taylor perform live? How are you coming into this?
Carine Lavache: So I wouldn’t describe myself as a hardcore Swiftie, but I’ve definitely followed her through her eras and listened to her albums. I feel like I’ll offer a good middle ground for choosing which one of you presents my favorite setlist. I feel nervous for your both but also excited, because I know you’re going to present something great, and it won’t be easy to pick regardless. I haven’t seen her live though, but I know she’s a great performer, and I respect her as an artist.
Madison Feller: I agree. You are our middle ground. You will bring us back to earth, and let us know what the people actually actually want.
Sam’s Version
- “Bejeweled”: “I felt like this was actually the perfect opener. It’s fun. It’s kind of that banger opener I think she loves. She talks about outfits and the band, and I think it gives a lot of nods as a good tour opener. Everyone on TikTok has been planning their outfits, so I think this one would make sense as an opener of being like, you’re all bejeweled to see me perform.”
- “Lavender Haze”/“…Ready For It?”: “They have similar beats, similar tunes. After ‘Bejeweled,’ she goes, ‘Meet me at midnight,’ and then halfway through, the beat goes into that really noticeable ‘…Ready For It?’ beat. She opened up Reputation Tour with ‘…Ready For It?’ so I didn’t want to mock that, but I think these two together work really well for me.”
- “Look What You Made Me Do”/“Don’t Blame Me”/“Haunted”/“Vigilante Shit”: “I then went into a four-song mash-up…It’s all this dark, haunted, for lack of a better term, music that I think is just fierce, heavy, kind of more intense music and sound. I feel like I created my mash-ups more so based on sound than necessarily lyrics….I am exposing my favorite album by doing this, which is definitely Reputation. That is definitely what I want to see in the tour.”
- “Love Story”: “I gave it a full slot. I figured if we’re going for accuracy, it has to be in here. So I put it at number four, and I think it leads very well into the fifth song, which I did as a track five medley.”
- “Delicate”/“The Archer”/“Dear John”/“My Tears Ricochet”: “This tour seems, to me, to be in service of the fans, so I think hitting a bunch of track fives at once makes a lot of sense to me in this spot. It starts with ‘Delicate’—so you get the ‘1, 2, 3, let’s go, bitch,’ which is a fan-favorite moment—then goes into ‘The Archer.’ I think can hit probably ‘Dear John’ and then ‘My Tears Ricochet.’ Maybe it hits them all in a world, but that’s a lot of ground to cover. But I definitely need it to start on ‘Delicate’ and end with ‘My Tears Ricochet,’ because this track five medley brings Taylor into a calmer moment, and she goes into just her and the guitar into…”
- “Invisible String”
- “Willow”/“I Think He Knows”: “This is the craziest thing I did…‘Willow’ is the Grammy’s version, which had this really amazing drum behind it that I think actually lends to the snaps of ‘I Think He Knows.’ I was really obsessed with the thought of also her being like, ‘That’s my man,’ and then, ‘I think he knows.’ It’s a fun little lyrical moment that I loved. … I feel like she always does a really unexpected mash-up. On Reputation, it was ‘Bad Blood’ and ‘Should’ve Said No.’ I felt like I had to throw a really weird one in there, and that was it.”
- “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”/“Shake It Off”/“ME!”: “Then we go into my I’m-just-checking-off-the-boxes track…Just knock ‘em out.”
- “You Need to Calm Down”/“This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”/“Karma”: “It’s what I’m calling the revenge medley. Those all have this kind of bubblegum pop-y sound and all have a similar message of like: ‘Wrong me? I fire back’ And I think they work really well together in this sound and this theme.”
- “Midnight Rain” or “Blank Space”: “It depends here on if it’s a rain show or not, as I think rain shows live in the Taylor Swift lore as being these magical experiences. So if it’s a rain show, she has to do ‘Midnight Rain.’ But if it’s not, I’m swapping it out for my favorite Taylor Swift track off 1989, which is ‘Blank Space.’”
- “Wildest Dreams”/“Gold Rush”: “Eleven is leading to a B-stage moment. It’s when she flies over the crowd, or something along those lines…‘Gold Rush’ is my favorite song off Evermore. I have it in a playlist called ‘Planetarium’; it’s music that makes me feel like I’m soaring through the stars, and I think both of those fit that very well.”
- “Cardigan”/“August”/“Betty”:“She hit so hard about that these are a love triangle, and so why not put them all together into this kind of folklorian moment where she gets to tell the full story?”
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- “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)”: “I had to put it at 13, because it’s Taylor’s number. I also didn’t want to put it at the end thinking about her vocal health. This would be a beast to sing as one of the last few songs, even though I think it’s one of her bigger ones right now. So I stuck it in the middle, because I feel like it would be good for her to vocally get through it, and then move on…I’m seeing this at the front of the stage or on the diamond on the stage and her surrounded by instruments. I think this one’s on the guitar, but there’s also a piano there to set the scene.”
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- “Champagne Problems”: “It’s standalone…which needs to be at the piano.”
- “Mastermind”: “Then going out of this B-stage moment, the song to transition out—her sailing away—is ‘Mastermind,’ which I think has the little kind of planetarium moment ‘Wildest Dreams’ and ‘Gold Rush’ do. It’s a good singing-over-the-crowd, not-a-lot-of-dancing, a song that’s a bop that gets you going from this slow-down moment.”
- Guest feature: “She has a lot of features on her most recent vault tracks and also in general. I think it’s likely she has guests on this tour, so track 16 is when her and whatever guests it is would perform that song. If it’s HAIM, maybe it’s ‘Gasoline’ or
- “Tim McGraw”: “Then we have another guitar moment. I think the Eras Tour is incomplete—and if she doesn’t include it, I said what I said—without the song that started it all…I almost opened the tour with the song, and then I was like, I can’t do that. But I think it has to be here somewhere, and it also hits the Taylor Swift box, which I was struggling with a bit too.”
- “Enchanted”/“Lover”: “I think they fit so well. ‘I was enchanted to meet you’ was younger Taylor hoping to find this man, and then we go into ‘Lover,’ and it’s like Taylor’s found her lover. I think it’s this beautiful story. They’re both kind of piano ballads in a beautiful way. ‘Enchanted’ definitely has a lot more sonically going on, but I think it’s a fun little moment.”
- “Getaway Car”/“Cruel Summer”: “[This] was a mash-up on TikTok someone did, and I was obsessed with it. I’m like, Taylor, please learn from this, and do it. I also have to say if I don’t hear ‘Cruel Summer’ on this tour… I need to hear it in a stadium. It will be so bad for me if I don’t hear the song on this tour. I want to hear it at the end too, personally, so it’s like I’m leaving on this high.”
- “Anti-Hero”: “But also my closing song, I think that’s a high.”
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Carine Lavache: I have chills already.
Madison Feller: Wow, that was so good. What I loved about that was you hit so many essential points, but it still felt very unexpected to me. If I were at that show, I would feel constantly surprised and delighted, but I wouldn’t walk away being like, “But she didn’t do this, and she didn’t do this.”
Sam Maude: Part of my mission here was I wanted to include more songs from her newer albums. That was very important to me.
Madison Feller: When you were getting toward the end, I was like, is he gonna end with “Cruel Summer”? Like, I know what’s coming. Where is it?
Sam Maude: It has to be there.
Madison Feller: I mean, I will riot it if it doesn’t happen. Well this is fascinating, because I feel like we had a lot of similarities and a lot of drastic differences. I almost venture to say mine is a bit more basic than yours, but I had a similar strategy in that I wanted to focus a lot on Lover and Midnights, givesome love to the vault tracks since I feel like the re-recordings are such an important project for her. But I tried to go a bit more linear in terms of her career.
Sam Maude: I really thought about going straight linear, so I need to see what you do.
Madison’s Version
- “Bejeweled”: “So I, too, open with ‘Bejeweled.’ You want to open with Midnights. It’s a single. It’s such a big song. I feel like it’s her moment to be like, when I walk in the room, I can still make it shimmer. She can make everyone’s wristbands sparkle in the audience. It’s almost a reintroduction of her, especially after she had Folklore and Evermore as folk-y albums; I feel like you want to enter [this tour] as a pop star. Then I think she does her little intro and gives some description of the tour and how it’s going to go through her eras.”
- “Our Song”: “Then I’m going straight into [her] debut [album]…It’s such a big song for her, but it still represents that beginning part of her career. … I will say, I thought about if it’s weird to jump between the pop and the country, but that’s kind of her whole thing, and I think she could make it work.”
- “Love Story”/“You Belong With Me”: “I know she combined those two with “Style” in the Reputation Tour, but I still think these songs are really two peas in a pod in a lot of ways in terms of being huge, huge moments for her career. So we’re going to put them together and do that as our number three.”
- “You’re On Your Own Kid”: “For number four, we’re going out of the linear timeline and bringing in a song off of Midnights that, to me, really describes the beginning of her career, which is, one of my favorites… It touches on where she started and where she’s going, which is kind of what the whole tour is about. So I feel like it slots in nicely.”
- “Mean”/“You Need to Calm Down”/“Karma”: “Now we get into, similar to Sam, a clap-back medley…‘You Need to Calm Down,’ we need the Lover single in there; ‘Karma,’ people just love, you want a Midnightsmoment; then ‘Mean’ to me is really a special song in her discography. It was her taking back the narrative, she had that incredible Grammy’s performance, it gives a little bit of that country Taylor.”
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- “Mr. Perfectly Fine”: “A chaotic choice, but…I just need to hear it, and it’ll give love to the whole concept of the re-records and the vault tracks.”
- “Style”/“Blank Space”: “Two birds, one stone—two of her biggest singles off 1989.”
- “Out of the Woods”/“Question…?”: “This is our nod to Harry Styles…I’ve seen people do this on TikTok, and I feel like there’s something about being like, ‘Can I ask you a question? Are we out of the woods yet?’ that could work well together.”
- “Delicate”: “I saw her respond [on Twitter] kind of confirming that ‘Delicate’ would be somewhere on the list, and this is my big Reputation moment.
- “I Think He Knows”/“Lavender Haze”: “I think [this mashup] will be a surprise to not a lot of people, because these songs sound so similar to each other. It brings in a Midnights hit and more of a deep-cut Lover moment for those of us mourning that we didn’t get Lover Fest. I’ve heard some mash-ups on TikTok, and they sound really, really good together.”
- “Cruel Summer”: “This is her flying-over-the-crowd moment, whatever it is that she’s doing to get to her B-stage….I want her flying over me while we’re all screaming ‘Cruel Summer,’ and for it to be in its entirety and to have this big moment with it. I think the controversial part is that it comes in the middle of the setlist, but I had to make a choice.”
- “Betty”/“Cardigan”/“August”: “Now we’re at the B-stage and, also like Sam, we are opening with [this] medley….How could she not? The only hesitation I had is that I feel like some people will be upset to not get ‘August’ in its entirety, but it just makes a lot of sense. And you can see on my setlist, Folklore and Evermore definitely have not as many songs, because I think they don’t really lend themselves quite as much to a big stadium tour, although on yours [Sam], it really worked, so I could just be so wrong. But I think this is a good way to get in three of people’s favorite songs off Folklore. And it just makes sense with, like you said, the love triangle.”
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- “Champagne Problems”: “You gotta. She has said she wants people screaming these lyrics back at her. And it’s the Evermore moment we need.”
- Guest feature: “This is my special guest duet moment. I think this song will change every night, and it will probably be a Folklore song, an Evermore song, a vault song in some sort of duet. So for the nights HAIM’s opening, maybe ‘No Body, No Crime.’ The nights Phoebe Bridgers is opening, probably ‘Nothing New.’ Maybe we get that song Maren Morris is on [‘You All Over Me’]. Something of that ilk is what goes here. And like you said, if there’s no guest, I think she’s just picking a song from those three categories: Folklore, Evermore, or a vault track.”
- “Shake It Off”: “Then to exit the B-stage, I also checked a box…It’s a good way to transition from this slower moment back into our big pop songs.”
- “Anti-Hero”: “So now we’ve returned to the main stage, and we are doing ‘Anti-Hero,’ the big, big, big song off Midnights. This is its moment. I also considered doing ‘Anti-Hero’ with her and the guitar, kind of like she did at The 1975 concert, but I feel like now we’ve seen that, so we want a bigger, poppier ‘Anti-Hero’ spectacle.”
- “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve”/“Dear John”: “I’m laughing, because I’m about to get into my most chaotic choice, which is after ‘Anti-Hero,’ we’re on this high. We’re gonna go into our valley, our emotional well, which is her at the piano doing ‘Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve’ into ‘Dear John.’ This will never happen. But I want to see it so badly. I saw someone on TikTok doing this where they sang ‘Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,’ and I believe at the end of the chorus, they went into, ‘You should’ve known,’ from ‘Dear John,’ and my heart broke in two. So I would really love to see it. I don’t believe she’s played ‘Dear John’ since the Speak Now Tour for obvious reasons. But I did think, okay we got ‘Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve’—clearly she felt [like she’s] at a place [in her life] to put out that song. So maybe that means we could get both together.”
- “Death By a Thousand Cuts”: “So we have this moment. We’re all crying, and now we’re gonna stay in our feels…I feel like it’s a fan favorite off of Lover, so I give it a full song.”
- “Mastermind”: “I think it’s a brilliant closer to the [Midnights] album, and for similar reasons, I think it’s a good closer to the show, because it really is the summation of her career, which is her being like, yeah, I did mastermind all this. It really ties a bow on everything.”
- “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)”: “So she does ‘Mastermind’—Sam, you’re going to say no—but she’s going to leave the stage, and then she’s going to come back, just her and a guitar, for ‘All Too Well (10 Minute Version).’ And that is the encore. Obviously, it’s more of a mellow moment, not quite as high maybe. It’s almost a nod back to the beginning of her career, which is just her and her guitar on stage singing this song that really the fans made into what it is. I also thought, okay, if there are parents with really little kids, and they don’t want to stay, they could leave at this point, because obviously what I’ve presented is a very long concert. That’s the show! Chaotic, perhaps? But I would love to see it.”
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Sam Maude: This really speaks to her discography, because you had songs I didn’t, I had songs you didn’t. There are just so many options here that I really do wonder if things are going to change beyond what we mentioned, and it’s going to be a different show every single night, because she has so much to work with. I mean, if it’s a five-hour show and she wants to hit it all, I’m okay with that. I’ll do it. The fact that our setlists were very similar and different just speaks to her work.
Madison Feller: 100 percent. And because both of us still feel like we left things on the cutting room floor that could have made it into either setlist.
Sam Maude: Oh yes, I went through about seven drafts.
The Winner
Madison Feller: Okay Carine, this is our time to hand it to you. What are your thoughts on both? Is there anything we left out you really wish we had included or anything that made you really excited?
Carine Lavache: I mean, first of all, I’m confused, because I don’t know why you both made this so hard for me. I knew you would bring it, but I’m sitting here like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I have no idea. I did really, really love, Sam, that your medleys had such a theme to them. Everything made so much sense and was so smart. I will say, the yearning for youth I felt when you mentioned “Tim McGraw.” I was like, oh my gosh, this is quintessential Taylor Swift for me. Then both of you having “Bejeweled” as the song that kicks everything off is the best choice, only because it’s the visual of her being like, “I can still make the whole place shimmer,” and seeing the crowd screaming and her just looking into the distance. I’m like, yes, this is how Taylor is going to make her statement.
Sam Maude: Literally, it has to be. Sorry, now I’m obsessed.
Carine Lavache: I wasn’t sure what you were going to start with, but there’s no other song. If she doesn’t start with that, I think she needs to hire you as advisors, because that’s the one.
Then, Madi, I love that you ended with it with “All Too Well,” because it really does bring it back to the fans. Even though I don’t think necessarily I would’ve been like, I want to hear that one last, the sentiment and the emotion behind “All Too Well” and what it is today feels like the ultimate hug between Taylor and her fans, which I think matters the most in the end. And “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” is one of my favorite songs on Midnights, so I’m glad you included that.
Madison Feller: Thank you for validating my chaos moment.
Carine Lavache: Of course. I think if I had to choose one—I feel like I’m Ryan Seacrest on American Idol, like, “And the winner is….” We’re going to commercial break, we’ll be back.
Madison Feller: We’re all winners here.
Carine Lavache: You both presented great setlists. I think the one I’m gonna go with though for today, because it might change and Taylor’s going to change it every night, is Sam.
Madison Feller: I agree. I would love to see Sam’s tour, hands down.
Carine Lavache: I feel like “Anti-Hero” is such a fun ending too. Sam, I think it’s time for you to deliver your acceptance speech.
Sam Maude: My gosh. No, I seriously also think, Madi, your tour would be so much fun. I really had a moment where I was gonna go chronologically too, and then I just was like, I don’t think I can do it. So I was very impressed to hear it done and done very well.
Madison Feller: From you, that means a lot, I appreciate it.
Sam Maude: But thank you very much. Taylor, give me a call. I’ll help out in any way, shape, or form.
Madison is a senior writer/editor at ELLE.com, covering news, politics, and culture. When she’s not on the internet, you can most likely find her taking a nap or eating banana bread.
Samuel is the Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief at ELLE Magazine. His interests include music, theater, books, video games, and anything to do with Taylor Swift. He famously broke both his arms at the same time in fourth grade.