Taylor Swift is officially scrapping a long-standing Eras Tour rule—one that she herself established in the first place.
Swifties whose concert date has yet to arrive can breathe a sigh of relief if they’ve already seen their favorite song played during the acoustic set on a glitchy TikTok livestream because the “Dear Reader” songstress is removing her previously imposed limits on repeating “surprise songs”—otherwise known as the tracks that are not on the permanent setlist.
In a video uploaded to TikTok, Swift explained to her final crowd in Melbourne, Australia, that she first instituted the rule to “challenge” herself “to really get to all of the ones that I just don’t naturally gravitate towards.”
While she hasn’t played her entire discography across the tour, she has made quite a dent in it—a feat she says she’s “really proud about having done.”
But as the second year of the tour ramps up, she’s looking to become “as creative as possible with the acoustic set”—as proven in the three-song mashup she performed the prior night. “I don’t want to limit anything. I don’t want to just say, ‘Oh, I played this song before, I can’t play it again.’ So from now on…I don’t want to take any paint colors out of the paint box of colors, I don’t want to take any tools out of the toolbox,” she said, struggling to find the metaphor she was looking for.
All that to say, “I want to be able to play songs more than once if I feel like it and I want to be able to make changes to songs…”
Previously, Swift would only repeat songs from her latest album, Midnights, or if she happened to mess them up—like when she performed “Clean” in the wrong key—which left some fans joking that they’d lost whenever their favorite songs were played.
As a result, it’s safe to say that fans aren’t upset but the sudden change in procedure.
“wait she’s so real for this yess mother before my show too oh you did this for me,” one wrote in response.
“She has no more rules, it’s just pure chaos from now on,” another joked.