“You Belong With Me” – On the Tailgate End of Taylor Swift's Unattainable Superstardom

From A Swiftie’s Point of View: the Good, the Crazy, and the Delusional.

Photo Courtesy: Zoe Dahse

Yet another extensive article that explains Taylor Swift’s apparent but very real chokehold on global culture? Fear not – this one is (evidently) different.

Thursday 30th May 2024.

I exit the metro station at Santiago Bernabeu, sweaty, somewhat dejected, and yet in a terribly jovial mood. It’s late May in Madrid, Spain, and Taylor Swift is inside the home stadium of Real Madrid. The air is hot and beautifully crisp in this city that I love so much. I’ve just run past a group of obvious Swifties (sparkly and glittery miniskirts, t-shirts with lyrics hand painted onto them), all of us evidently intent on going to the same place. We’re 10 minutes late to the event of the century that we were unable to draw sufficient blood for: Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour.

Taylor-gating/ Tay-gating/ Tayl-gating – however you choose to define it, dominated TikTok and social media throughout the Eras Tour. The idea proposed itself as a solution for those fans who were unable to get their hands on tickets, following the unprecedented demand on Ticketmaster and extortionate resale prices which reached the thousands.

The Eras Tour concluded on the 8th of December in Vancouver, Canada, drawing a close to a near two-year long tour which has broken records in making more than US$1 billion in revenue.

The concept of the tour was to support her ten studio albums in their respective “Eras”. Her performance consists of a 44 song setlist across three and a half hours, including some surprise songs in her acoustic set. The extent of its cultural impact has been globally applauded: critics, for the most part, lauded her showmanship. Fans dissected her every moment on the tour via social media – such is the inescapable extent of Swift’s superstardom. As The Guardian’s head music critic Alexis Petridis highlights: “so much attention has been focused on the Eras Tour that reviewing it seems almost beside the point. Every conceivable detail has already been dissected and discussed in depth.”

In the name of fangirling, standing outside a venue to hear echoes of the artist’s voice verges on ridiculous. Nevertheless, the knowledge that Swift would not be touring again for years has propelled me to attempt it. Somewhat self-conscious at first, I “shake it off” as my thoughts are drowned out by the roaring crowds inside. Who cares? After all, the artist I listen to every day is mere metres away. 

I call my younger brother. 

“Luca, guess where I am?” “Where?” He sounds less than enthused.

“Can you hear?” I hold the speakerphone out towards the stadium. “The Man”, from her 2019 album Lover, is currently playing. 

“Urgh, babes, seriously, you need to get a life. Listen to Kanye instead.” I hang up. 

“I’m so sick of running as fast I can”, she belts out from inside. It’s true, I am. 

The Man? I remember summer 2019, on holiday in Germany, and the two of us catwalking down the corridors of our hotel screaming the lyrics.

*

It’s now 20 minutes past 8pm, and Swift is four songs into her Lover era. Images of what’s happening inside the arena formulate in my mind, having watched her Eras Tour Concert Film and clips that SwiftTok has made inescapable. Last night, in a half-hearted attempt of delusion, Stubhub was offering tickets for 257 euro. Having hit negative balance last week, I decided not to. Unfortunately, nothing beats the actual feeling of being inside the stadium. Obviously. But I enjoy it, nevertheless.

Her Fearless era begins - “You Belong With Me” plays as I text my ex-situationship back (what a term to describe such an emotionally exhausting relationship) who broke my heart (but only a bit) a little over a month ago. 

I move around the stadium, trying to find the best position sonically. Fans and their parents are crowding all around the stadium. Many kids are crying. I think of being 15 and dancing in friends’ kitchens screaming out Love Story together in the name of unrequited love (from people who were never, ever going to be worthy of/ understand all of our female rage, angst and love).

“Bienvenidos al infierno” a dad mutters, looking on with utter disgust as he watches his teen daughter scream the lyrics out loud with a group of girlfriends. 

I grin, savour the moment, and move past them. Tailgating a concert is quite a solitary experience to begin with, but once I decide to just lean into all the moments taking place around me, I begin to like it.

From inside, she swiftly moves into her Red era – 22’s ‘we’re all happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time’ rings true for anyone. It’s one of those wonderfully encapsulating lyrics that means everything and nothing at the same time.

I Knew You Were Trouble’s “when you said you needed space” also hits home as aforementioned ex-situationship messages me back something vaguely flirtatious I daren’t go into (I gave him flowers/ entirely my fault).

The thing is, Swift truly has soundtracked all the (very few genuine) heartbreaks I’ve experienced, but also the countless crushes, delusions and daydreams. Many of my friends can’t understand the appeal, but her success lies in the catchiness of her songs, the all-encompassing lyrics that can apply to anyone as they move throughout life’s highs and lows, and her versatility. The lore of Swift is long and complicated, and there’s so much for her fanbase to dissect from across the years.

Case in point – Swift’s highly popularised All Too Well (10 Minute Version) from her 2021 Red (Taylor’s Version) re-recorded album takes me back to first year with Bloomsbury’s November 2021 chill and all that I felt and saw in my first few weeks in London. It feels like little memories I had stored away never to be unlocked. I smile broadly when the kids (8 years younger than me) scream out “Fuck The Patriarchy”. Hell yeah. 

I walk back around to the other side of the stadium when the Speak Now era plays (irrelevant to me, sorry), and a man next to me starts to mutter “she’s precious” over and over while staring at a photo of her. I take that as my cue to leave. My head starts to hurt, so I decide to get a Subway.

Entering her Reputation era (my favourite album), Ready For It plays as my new crush texts about our upcoming “cita/ date” plans. I miss Delicate, my favourite song from the album, in my hunt for food, but in the name of compromise it’s okay.

At this point it’s 21:30. We still have 2 hours to go. She moves into Folklore & Evermore, her combined setlist of her pandemic projects, and Cardigan’s bridge “When you are young, they assume you know nothing” is screamed out by groups of girls around me. “Insufferable,” I think at first, before calming down once the food hits my stomach.

Betty plays, and I feel goosebumps. It’s a beautiful song. This is genuinely an artist I listen to every day. It’s about being part of it even when you can’t be. “Culty, obsessive” (all words my brother has used) in some senses, but I love it. Security guards hand out bracelets that would have lit up in the stadium inside, to the joy of girls around me. I imagine Swift bouncing and dancing across the stage inside.

Photo Courtesy: Zoe Dahse

Champagne Problems takes me back to the January 2021 lockdown. August gives me an internally muted exorcism – a song my friends and I listened to on repeat in the summer of 2020 while on our end-of-year camping trip in Brighton. Formative girlhood experiences that Swift’s music has soundtracked throughout my teenage years.

The bridge for Illicit Affairs is a big favourite (“Don’t call me kid, don’t call me baby” the literal kids scream with anguish). One girl starts crying, and her friend embraces her. My stomach twists, and I sincerely wish she could have gotten tickets. Empathy, baby. Runners on their evening run stop to look around, bemused.

1989’s Blank Space and Wildest Dreams draw dancing and gleeful faces all around me. Fortnight, from The Tortured Poets Department, makes the ex-situationship ring true. I finally realise he’s only texting because he’s lonely and bored. He asks if he’s annoying me, and I lie and say no. The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived has a fantastic bridge I screamed out less than three weeks ago as I lay in my bed inconsolably distraught over him breaking up (ish) with me. By Our Song (her first surprise song from the acoustic set) we’ve had an argument over text, and I feel bad and insecure again (the basis of our incompatibility).

A group of girls scream when they are given white Eras Tour armbands by security. “Okay that’s way too much,” I mutter to myself. I can feel his negative energy encroaching on my goodwill. (I am also tired, and on my period). I just about get through the Midnights Era, but at this point I’m ready to leave to avoid the crowds on the metro. I get home exhausted, having just missed Karma, albeit my favourite song from Midnights.

I complain to my flatmate, Iris, about him.

“He knows exactly what to say to annoy you, no?” she says.

Oh, he does. But I still find it hard to get past him.

*

Fellow Erasmus students I meet tell me they’re criss-crossing Europe this summer to go and see Swift. Later in the summer a friend of a friend confides that she has got tickets to see her London show three times via StubHub. 

The Eras Tour has been a cultural phenomenon of the highest regard. I confess, the lore and mania surrounding her can sometimes be overkill. Undoubtedly, she’s a great artist, but why can’t that in itself be enough? Nevertheless, “Fangirlear” (“Fangirling”) is a wonderful Spanglish verb I’ve come across, that applies to all the fans who support their favourite artists and their work.

I hope to see her tour one day (maybe with my children). Undoubtedly, she’ll come up with something creatively genius, and who knows how many albums she’ll release in the meantime. How to move on from the high of her wildly successful Eras Tour though, begs a big question.

From one Swiftie to another, I hope we all get the chance to see her, despite her seemingly unattainable superstardom. Her fans deserve it.