During Taylor Swift’s debut Eras Tour concert, she opened up about her frequent lyrical inspiration.
Swift, whose Eras Tour marks her first live concert since 2018’s Reputation tour, had been introducing the show’s shift to her Folklore album era when she dropped her truth about songwriting.
“[My songs are] kind of like journaling for you or something. [And] I wanted to do a different thing that I had done before [with Folklore],” the Cats actress explained during the show, before being met with widespread applause from the crowd. “You know, my albums have characteristically been, sort of, excruciatingly autobiographical where, like, when I put out an album, it just feels like getting some sort of live-streamed, public autopsy.”
She added: “With this one, I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be so fun to create characters and storylines? They’ll live in different times, and they’ll do all these things and fall in love and hurt each other, go to wars and all these things.’ So, I created all these characters.”
Three of the characters on her 2020-released Folklore are James, Betty and August — the former two named after two of BFF Blake Lively and husband Ryan Reynolds‘ daughters — on the single “Betty.”
“This is a song about a teenage [boy] named James trying to apologize to the love of his life and her name is Betty,” Swift quipped during the show before strumming her acoustic guitar to kick off the number.
“I miss you like it was the very first night. Good thing we’re about to go onstage and do the whole thing again tonight,” Swift gushed via Instagram on Saturday, March 18, sharing pics from the debut performance ahead of her second Arizona concert. “See you 🔜 Glendale, Erazona.”
While the Pennsylvania native sings “Betty” and other characterized singles from Folklore during Eras Tour, she has also incorporated many of her original breakup songs into the setlist.
