Easter eggs. Eras. Vault tracks. TV. Friendship bracelets.
If you're not a fan, you may have no idea that all those terms are tied to Taylor Swift.
We don't expect every Hoosier to be a knowledgeable Swiftie, so we've put together a guide with a few terms/things you may need to know ahead of her Indianapolis shows in November. Our list should give you a Swift education.
Here is a glossary of terms and things you may see in reference to Taylor Swift.
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13
The number 13 has long been associated with Swift.
She famously wrote the number on the back of her hand during her Fearless Tour in 2009 and 2010. She has always said it is her lucky number, which is why her fans are always looking for Swift connections whenever they see the number.
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Cat lady
Swift isn't shy about her love of cats, and she has three of her own.
In her recent endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris she even declared herself a "Childless Cat Lady," which was a dig at former President Donald Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance.
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Easter eggs
Throughout her career Swift has been known for leaving little clues in music videos, award acceptance speeches, live performances, interviews and even her outfits that hint at what is coming next from her.
Fans have gotten exceptionally good at uncovering these "Easter eggs." A great example is Swift's music video for her song "Bejeweled."
Fans had been speculating that "Speak Now" would be the next album to be re-recorded and released for a while, and the music video confirmed it for fans with numerous hints.
She hit a purple third floor elevator button in the video ("Speak Now" is her third studio album); a song called "Enchanted" from that album played behind dialogue at the beginning of the video; and dragons were flying at the end of the video, which seemed to be a nod to her song "Long Live" with the lyrics "I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you."
Swift explained the Easter eggs to The Washington Post in 2022.
"When I was 15 and putting together my first album, [...] I decided to encode the lyrics with hidden messages using capital letters," Swift said. "That's how it started, and my fans and I have since descended into color coding, numerology, word searches, elaborate hints and Easter eggs."
Eras
When someone says "Reputation is my favorite era," they are referring to the time period that surrounded a Taylor Swift album release. Each album has its own era to represent a different chapter of her 18-year career.
That is why Swift named her tour, "The Eras Tour."
"This tour is called The Eras Tour, and it's a journey through all of my musical eras of my career," Swift said when announcing the tour onGood Morning Americain November 2022.
Friendship bracelets
A song on Taylor Swift's 2020 album "Midnights," inspired her fans to make friendship bracelets and then bring them and trade them at The Eras Tour.
"You're On Your Own, Kid" is track 5 (more on this later) on Swift's 9th studio album. In the song, it references making friendship bracelets.
"Everything you lose is a step you take / So, make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it / You've got no reason to be afraid."
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Guy on the screen/Guy on the Chiefs
Taylor Swift has written many songs about the guys she has dated over the years and despite the artist's insistence she would rather they not speculate about her personal life, fans still like to guess which songs are about which man.
Fans think her ex, Joe Alwyn has the most songs written about him, which makes sense as they were together for six years. In that time, she released five albums.
Her final album that was released just before it was publicly confirmed their relationship was over was "Midnights." On that album, she has a song called "Karma," which is the final song she sings each night of The Eras Tour.
In the song, she says "Karma is my boyfriend," and later on in the song makes a direct reference to her boyfriend at the time Alwyn, who is an actor.
"Karma is the guy on the screen / Coming straight home to me."
During an Eras Tour performance in Argentina in Nov. 2023, Swift opted to change the lyric on stage to surprise her current boyfriend, Travis Kelce, who was in the audience.
Instead she sang, "Karma is the guy on the Chiefs / Coming straight home to me." She typically continues to change the lyric when Kelce is in attendance.
She has since released songs that are assumed to be about Kelce ("So High School" and "The Alchemy") and he has more or less confirmed so in interviews by sharing that those are his favorite songs off her latest album, "The Tortured Poets Department."
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Song abbreviations
Some of Swift's song titles are quite long, which is why fans have turned them into acronyms for shorter references that you may often see online. Here are a few examples of that:
- YOYOK = "You're On Your Own, Kid"
- DBATC = "Death By A Thousand Cuts"
- LWYMMD = "Look What You Made Me Do"
- WANEGBT = "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"
- YNTCD = "You Need To Calm Down"
- IKYWT = "I Knew You Were Trouble"
- IOMWIWY = "I'm Only Me When I'm With You"
- TLGAD = "the last great american dynasty"
- TIWWCHNT = "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things"
Swift has 274 songs in her discography, so if there's an acronym you ever can't decipher, it's totally okay to look it up.
Surprise songs
Swift has been adding surprise songs to her setlist as early as her Red Tour, which took place in 2013 following the release of her fourth studio album "Red."
Each night she would sing an acoustic version of a song from her catalog that was not already included in the setlist. She did the same for her 1989 World Tour and her Reputation Stadium Tour.
The Eras Tour is the first time she has designated two slots for acoustic covers of songs not included in the setlist.
Fans love to guess what songs she will sing at their shows and Swift loves to keep them guessing. She has even used the surprise songs as Easter eggs.
During the 2023 leg of the tour she promised fans she would not repeat songs. At her final Los Angeles show, all her outfits were blue and she announced the upcoming release of "1989 (Taylor's Version)" during the acoustic set before singing "New Romantics," the final song not yet performed from "1989."
For 2024, Swift reopened her catalog of songs and the no repeats rule for Surprise Songs is out the window. Most recently, Swift has been performing mashups instead of just two songs on their own.
Swiftie
Like most fanbases, Taylor Swift fans have a unique nickname. Swift fans have long been referred to as "Swifties."
Taylor's Version (TV)
Swift has very publicly spoken about how important it is to her to own her own music, but as of right now, she does not own the master recordings of her first six albums. According to Swift, she was not given the opportunity to purchase them.
This is why Swift is re-recording her first six albums and re-releasing them as (Taylor's Version), which fans sometimes shorten to TV (i.e. "I'm so excited for Rep TV!" means "Reputation (Taylor's Version)").
She has a songwriting credit on every song in her discography and that is why she is able to do this.
Taytoos
Taytoos is what Swifties call their Taylor Swift-themed tattoos.
Track 5
Track 5 on all of Taylor Swift's albums is typically the most devastating song on the album, and these often become fan favorites. It is a pattern her fans know to look for, even though Swift said she didn't realize it was a pattern she followed.
In 2019 ahead of the release of her album "Lover," Swift took to Instagram Live and spoke about the track 5 theory and how after fans pointed it out it is something she continues to do.
"Because you noticed this—I kind of started to like put the songs that were really honest, emotional and vulnerable and personal as track five—so that has definitely happened in the case of track 5 on this album 'Lover'," she said.
Track 5 tracks in order are:
- "Cold As You" ("Taylor Swift," 2006)
- "White Horse" ("Fearless," 2008)
- "Dear John" ("Speak Now," 2010)
- "All Too Well" ("Red," 2012)
- "All You Had to Do Was Stay" ("1989," 2014)
- "Delicate" ("Reputation," 2017)
- "The Archer" ("Lover," 2019)
- "my tears ricochet" ("folklore," 2020)
- "tolerate it" ("evermore," 2020)
- "You're On Your Own, Kid" ("Midnights," 2022)
- "So Long, London" ("The Tortured Poets Department," 2024)
Vault tracks
As something special for the fans who listen to her re-recorded albums, Swift is adding new never-before released songs that were written at the time of the original album release. Some of them are songs she may have never even demoed while others are ones that simply didn't make the original track list.
These songs can be recognized for having "(Taylor's Version) (From the Vault)" at the end of the song title.
Katie Wisemanis a trending news reporter at IndyStar. Contact her at klwiseman@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter@itskatiewiseman.
