Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Book: What We Learned

Swift says her “beloved Eras Tour” has been “the most wondrous tour of my life.” While at the time of her book’s release Eras is not quite over yet — there’s more dates to go in Vancouver, from Dec. 6-8 — the star’s choice to sign the prologue of The Eras Tour Book with “See you next era… Taylor” makes it easy for one’s mind to wander. What’s coming next from the artist, who’s made history across multiple genres and sectors of the music industry since launching a career as a songwriter in Nashville, something around 20 years ago? What’s happening right now, as the Eras Tour comes to a close in late 2024, that might hint at her next era? She’s surely several steps ahead while we wonder.

It’s not sparkling dust, cosmic love or any element of alien abduction that powers the moving platform transporting Swift around the stage during Tortured Poets performance “Down Bad.” Although the moment is staged to feel mystical and magical, a member from the star’s tour crew is what keeps her moving. “The ‘rover’ platform I travel on actually is operated by a crew member, who lays inside the platform and drives it from inside,” Swift reveals in her book.

At some point early on in The Eras Tour, fans came to realize that Swift had an unexpected entrance to the main stage before the clock counts down to her opening number. Concertgoers won’t be spoiled before her official stage entrance because she is sneakily wheeled to the stage while enclosed in a box labeled as a cleaning cart.

The Eras Tour Book features a picture of Swift comfortably sitting inside the “cleaning cart,” which is minimally decked out with twinkly lights, framed cat art, a printout of the “animal of the day” (Meredith), a photo of the city she was probably playing the night the photo was taken and more.

Speak Now lovers have wondered why “Enchanted” is the one song from Swift’s third album to have a permanent place on The Eras Tour set list. Swift explains: “I chose the epic ‘Enchanted’ to represent this album because it was always my favorite song on the album.” In The Eras Tour Book she also writes that “Enchanted” is meant to “elicit that midsummer haze of intrigue we feel when we lock eyes with someone across a room.”

As the story goes, Swift’s working title for the album was originally Enchanted.

Not only is the sexy “Vigilante Shit” choreo Swift’s favorite — the late-in-the-show number from Midnights is her top moment from the entire concert, she writes in The Eras Tour Book. Of “my favorite moment of the night,” she says. “It’s just the most fun I’ve ever had, that one. The chair choreography! The catty, vengeful, mischievous personas we get to try on and play with.”

“For ‘Mastermind,’ we recreate a chessboard and when I signal the dancers to move to different spots on the board, they actually create the exact sequence for a checkmate,” Swift points out of a clever bit of choreo in her Midnights set. Unless you’re a chess pro, this exact replica of the move that’s revealed in her tour book is likely news to you, too. The concept lines right up with lyrics from the song: “And the touch of a hand lit the fuse/ Of a chain reaction of countermoves/ To assess the equation of you/ Checkmate, I couldn’t lose.”

Each night of The Eras Tour, one lucky fan becomes the proud new owner of the black bowler hat Swift wears during her performance of “22.” Often it’s a very excited, very young fan who gets surprised with this coveted concert memorabilia and a hug from the star, which Swift writes “warmed my heart every night.” A fun fact about this wonderful moment is revealed in her tour book: The inside of the hat even has Swift’s autograph.

There were no questions on Swift’s mind when it came to the opening lyric of her first tour in years. As she explains in her book, “I aways knew the Lover era should open the show, and specifically the line ‘it’s been a long time coming.’ Because it had been! I’d never gotten to tour the Lover album and so this was a brand new era we were creating.” The Eras Tour launched in 2023, after Swift’s highly anticipated Lover Fest dates, originally scheduled for 2020, were postponed and eventually canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the time between what would’ve been Lover Fest and what became The Eras Tour, she recorded and released three albums (Folklore, Evermore and Midnights) and added another to her discography before Eras ended (The Tortured Poets Department).