Taylor Swift: Which Songs Are Cut From the Eras Tour Movie?

It’s been a long time coming, but Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour is officially in theaters. The film, which arrived in theaters one day early due to overwhelming fan demand, captures Swift’s landmark (and still ongoing) tour on the big screen. The Eras Tour movie was filmed across three nights of shows in Los Angeles, California in August, and Swifties have definitely been excited to see how the career-spanning show is translated into a new medium.

As it turns out, that answer involves a few surprises, as a handful of songs that are staples of the live Eras Tour set do not make an appearance in the Eras Tour movie. Although initial reports had suggested that no songs would be cut from the Eras Tour film, there is a nearly half-hour difference between the live show and the movie’s 165 minute runtime. At the time of this writing, it is unclear why these songs were cut from the Eras Tour movie — maybe it was to make the film shorter and accommodate more showtimes, or maybe it is to offer an “extended” version at a later date. Either way, keep reading if you want to prepare yourself for the songs that don’t make it into the Eras Tour movie. Of course, spoilers for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour lurk below! Only look if you want to know!

Alternate Songs

First, it’s worth acknowledging the songs that Swift has had on the Eras Tour setlist at one point or another thus far — but not on the nights that the movie was filmed. This includes:

• evermore‘s “’tis the damn season”, which was replaced by “no body, no crime” during the shows that had Haim as an opening act — including the three Los Angeles shows that were filmed for the movie.
• Red (Taylor’s Version)‘s “Nothing New (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)”, which was added to the Red portion of the setlist for the shows that had Bridgers as an opening act.
• folklore‘s “invisible string”, which was replaced by “the 1” on the setlist beginning on March 31st.

The Archer

The opening set of The Eras Tour setlist — covering Swift’s 2019 album Lover, which she was not able to tour due to the COVID-19 pandemic — is edited down for the Eras Tour movie.

The final song of the section, “The Archer”, is not included in the film at all, instead going directly from “Lover” to “Fearless”, the first song of the Fearless (Taylor’s Version) set.

no body, no crime

Even though “no body, no crime” replaced “’tis the damn season” during the evermore sets that were filmed, that doesn’t prove to matter much during the movie. “no body, no crime” is cut out of the Eras Tour movie, instead having the evermore set open with “willow.”

Long Live

“Long Live” is easily one of the most surprising songs left out of the movie — and it’s easy to see why. The song was added to the Speak Now set of the Eras Tour (which, up until that point, had just consisted of “Enchanted”) on July 7th, shortly after the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). The fan-favorite song has remained on the setlist ever since, and was filmed as part of the movie, but the live performance does not technically make the final cut.

Instead, the studio version of “Long Live (Taylor’s Version)” plays as the end-credits song for the Eras Tour movie itself, which is sure to still tug on the heartstrings of many Swifties.

seven (interlude)

Across the Eras Tour movie, a number of the era-to-era transitions — which allow Swift and her dancers to change costumes during the live show — are trimmed down for time. This includes the opening of the folklore set, which involves voiceover of Swift reciting the lyrics to “seven” as a spoken word poem.

In place of the “seven” interlude, the Eras Tour movie now transitions from Red (Taylor’s Version)‘s “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)” directly into folklore‘s “the 1.”

cardigan

The “seven” interlude isn’t all that’s cut from the folklore set, as the section’s closing song — “cardigan” — is also a casualty. Despite being the most-streamed song off of folklore, and one-third of the “teenage love triangle” arc that Swift crafted across the album, “cardigan” does not make it into the Eras Tour movie. 

In its place, the folklore set now ends with “my tears ricochet”, before transitioning into the 1989 era.

Wildest Dreams

Even with the release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) just a matter of weeks away, the 1989 set in the Eras Tour movie is without one of its biggest hits. “Wildest Dreams”, which was the fifth single off of 1989, is cut from the film, instead going from “Shake It Off” into “Bad Blood.”

This is especially interesting when “Wildest Dreams” is one of the few 1989 songs that already has a Taylor’s Version released, as Swift surprise-dropped the new version of the song in 2021 after it was used in a popular TikTok trend. 

Surprise Songs

The Eras Tour movie was filmed across three shows of Swift’s Los Angeles stint — which meant that there were a total of six surprise songs that could have been included during the film’s acoustic set. The first surprise song ends up being a guitar rendition of “Our Song”, in part so Swift’s debut album Taylor Swift can be represented in the movie, as it does not have its own portion of the setlist. It is then followed by a piano rendition of Midnights‘ “You’re On Your Own, Kid”, which reflects on Swift’s career thus far and helped spawn the tour’s friendship bracelet phenomenon.

There are four surprise songs that did not make it into the film — on night one of filming, she performed the recently-released Speak Now vault track “I Can See You” on guitar, as well as Midnights fan-favorite “Maroon” on piano. She also performed 1989‘s “You Are in Love” on piano during the second night of filming, and Lover‘s “Death by a Thousand Cuts” on guitar during the third night of filming. Luckily, Swift seems to have relaxed her rules about repeating surprise songs on the Eras Tour, so fans attending future dates might get a chance to hear these songs in person.

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How do you feel about the songs that are cut from the Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour movie? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!