These 2 Songs In The Eras Tour Give Taylor Swift Fans The “Mash-Up” Change Missing From Her 2023 Concerts

Two songs in Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour bring viewers the recent mash-up surprise song experience missing from Swift’s 2023 concerts. In between the folklore era and the final Midnights era at every show on The Eras Tour, Swift does an acoustic set where she performs two surprise songs from her vast catalog of music: one on piano and one on acoustic guitar. Originally, Swift made a rule for herself that she wasn’t allowed to repeat surprise songs unless she messed one up somehow. She later revised the rule to allow herself to repeat surprise songs from Midnights only.

After resetting the list of surprise song options for the international leg in 2024, Swift eliminated the no-repeat rule altogether during her third show in Melbourne, Australia, on February 18. Since then, Swift has been repeating surprise songs and performing mash-ups of different songs during the acoustic set. Since Swift hadn’t started combining surprise songs yet when The Eras Tour movie was filmed in August 2023, the acoustic set in the movie doesn’t feature any mash-up performances. However, two songs on the set list in every version of The Eras Tour movie provide a similar mash-up experience.

The Eras Tour’s “Illicit Affairs” & “August” Blend Is The Closest The Movie Comes To Taylor Swift’s 2024 Mash-Up Change

Swift performs these folklore songs similarly to her 2024 surprise song mash-ups

Of all the songs in Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour movie, Swift’s blended performance of “august” and “illicit affairs” in the folklore era comes the closest to her 2024 surprise song mash-ups. Although the narrator of “august” is desperately yearning for the past, sonically, it’s a very light and breezy song. Swift performs “august” in a flowy white dress, frolicking around the stage as the wind blows to match the airy, summery vibe. However, Swift quickly changes her tune as she dramatically transitions into the exasperated, charged bridge of “illicit affairs,” dropping to her knees as she repeats the bridge.

The only other songs in The Eras Tour movie that come close to the mash-up experience are “Don’t Blame Me” and “Look What You Made Me Do” from the reputation era. As Swift repeats the titular phrase “don’t blame me” at the end of the song, she begins to sing the combined lyric “don’t blame me for what you made me do” before transitioning into “LWYMMD.” Although she blends the titles, this is not as similar to the surprise song-mash ups since she performs both reputation songs in full but only performs the bridge of “illicit affairs.”

Why Taylor Swift Started Doing Song Mash-Ups For Her Acoustic Sets In The Eras Tour

Swift wasn’t limited anymore after getting rid of the no-repeat surprise song rule

Although she could have started doing surprise song mash-ups during the first leg of The Eras Tour in 2023, she would have run out of songs a lot faster because of her self-imposed no-repeat rule. Now that she’s ditched the no-repeat rule, Swift is able to mash up as many songs as she wants during the acoustic set of each show without worrying about the well running dry. This desire to combine parts of different songs during the acoustic set is part of the reason Swift got rid of the no-repeat rule in the first place.

“I want to be as creative as possible with the acoustic set moving forward,” Swift explained during the Melbourne show on February 18 (via ABC10). “I don’t want to limit anything…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.” It’s too bad Swift didn’t start mashing up surprise songs before filming Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, but thankfully, “august” and “illicit affairs” can fill that void.