Taylor Swift has leaned into the rumours that her next re-recorded album will be ‘Speak Now’, performing the song and teasing its future at the first Florida show on her ‘Eras’ tour.
Swift performed the first of three shows in Tampa on Thursday (April 13), taking to the Raymond James Stadium alongside openers Beabadoobee and Gracie Abrams. The same line-up performed last night (April 14), with the last show, going down tonight (April 15), set to feature Gayle in Abrams’ place.
The headlining pop star played ‘Speak Now’ acoustically at last night’s show, introducing it with a hint that her 2010 album (of the same name) will be the next that she does a ‘Taylor’s Version’ redux for. “I’ve been thinking a lot about one of my albums recently,” she said. “One of my albums has been on my mind a lot… Lots going on in my brain about it.”
Have a look at footage of the moment below:
Taylor singing Speak Now as the first surprise song tonight in Tampa! #TSTheErasTour pic.twitter.com/saKMe95yjz
— Taylor Swift Updates (@SwiftNYC) April 14, 2023
Fans have long been convinced that ‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’ is imminent, with Swift herself having been teasing it for over half a year now. Thus far, she’s released re-recorded versions of ‘Fearless’ and ‘Red’, both of which arrived in 2021. Last month saw her drop three new re-recorded songs – ‘Eyes Open’, ‘Safe & Sound’ and ‘If This Was A Movie’ – as well as the ‘Lover’ B-side ‘All Of The Girls You Loved Before’.
Across all dates of the ‘Eras’ tour – where Swift appears to be avoiding unwanted attention by travelling in a janitor’s cart – the singer has deviated from her written setlist to perform surprise songs, as well as requests made by Jack Antonoff and Gracie Abrams. The sets themselves have been enormous, typically spanning 44 songs.
At one of her recent shows in Las Vegas, Swift was joined by Marcus Mumford to perform their ‘Evermore’ collab ‘Cowboy Like Me’. Across some of the other dates, she responded to a letter from a seven-year-old fan in the audience, and dedicated ‘Our Song’ to Beabadoobee. A couple also got married mid-show at her second show in Glendale, Arizona.
Meanwhile, Swift has quietly made “generous” donations to local food banks in the cities where she performed so far. Following tonight’s Tampa show, the tour will head to Houston for another trio of shows, before continuing into August. You can see all the dates here, with remaining tickets available here.
