Taylor Swift fans are feeling haunted by a particular Eras Tour performance that left them wondering about a date in the pop star’s life.
Since kicking off her worldwide Eras Tour last year, Swift has given plenty for fans to be happy about, from surprise music videos, rerecording releases and special guest stars. One of the most popular moments, however, remains her surprise song section of the concert, where she performs two different songs each night — one by guitar, the other by piano.
Swifties far and wide have rushed to live streams via TikTok to catch which surprise song Swift will do each evening, formulating theories about how dress colors correspond to the best tracks and looking for clues as to why certain song mashups are played together.
After Swift performed a mashup of her Speak Now song “Haunted” with the Folklore standout “Exile” at night three of her Edinburgh, Scotland, show on Sunday, June 9, eagle-eyed fans quickly realized it wasn’t the first time “Haunted” has been a surprise song choice. (While she initially stated she wouldn’t repeat any surprise songs twice, she’s since taken back the rule.)
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The singer first performed the deep cut on the exact same day one year prior in Detroit, Michigan, along with “I Almost Do” from her 2012 album, Red. Even curiouser, Swift opted to don similar pinkish-purple dresses on both occasions.
“Taylor Swift singing ‘Haunted’ exactly a year later after singing it at my show, I hat eher why would she do this to me,” one person wrote via X, while another said, “Playing ‘Haunted’ on my birthday 2 years in a row .. miss Taylor Swift what did I ever do to you???”
After releasing Speak Now in 2010, Swift opened up about her inspiration behind the ballad via her website.
“‘Haunted’ is about the moment that you realize the person you’re in love with is drifting and fading fast,” she wrote at the time. “And you don’t know what to do, but in that period of time, in that phase of love, where it’s fading out, time moves so slowly. Everything hinges on what that last text message said, and you’re realizing that he’s kind of falling out of love. That’s a really heartbreaking and tragic thing to go through, because the whole time you’re trying to tell yourself it’s not happening. I went through this, and I ended up waking up in the middle of the night writing this song about it.”
In her Speak Now lyric booklet, which contains secret messages hidden with capital letters, Swift wrote the message: “STILL TO THIS DAY.”
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Although Swift has never specified who the song is about — she once hinted it was an amalgamation of several boys from her past — many fans speculated at the time that the subject could be Joe Jonas, who Swift began dating in summer 2008. The pair were together for less than six months before calling it quits, with Swift claiming the JoBro broke up with her in a 27-second phone call.
Whether anything occurred on June 9 between the exes is unknown, but an additional song on Swift’s Speak Now record, “Last Kiss,” mentions the date of July 9, one month later — and is also heavily rumored to be about Jonas.
“I do recall now, the smell of the rain / Fresh on the pavement, I ran off the plane / That July 9th, the beat of your heart / It jumps through your shirt / I can still feel your arms,” Swift sings in the first verse.
While some believe it could, for some reason, be a callback to her time with Jonas — the duo are friends now, after all — others think June 9 could have a special meaning connected to her former fling, Matty Healy, whom she briefly dated in 2023 after break up with ex Joe Alwyn.
The pair were first linked in 2014 but didn’t confirm their romance at the time. They reignited their romance in May 2023, one month after her split from Alwyn. While she never directly addressed the relationship with Healy, 35, Swift told an Eras Tour crowd at the time that she had never been happier.
“I kind of just feel like telling you … I’ve just never been this happy in my life, in all aspects of my life, ever,” Swift said during her May 20 show in Massachusetts. “And I just want to thank you for being a part of that.:”
She continued, “It’s not just the tour, I just sort of feel like my life finally feels like it makes sense.”
Healy was also seen at several of Swift’s Eras Tour shows, and the duo were photographed holding hands and sharing a kiss on multiple occasions. By the beginning of June, however, theyhad called it quits.
Swift’s surprising songs that month certainly had a theme. Tracks like “I Wish You Would,” “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever,” “All You Had to Do Was Stay,” and “The Last Time” — in addition to “Haunted” and “I Almost Do” — weave similar themes of holding on to a dying romance. (Many songs off Swift’s 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, heavily rumored to be about Healy, also touch on similar subject matter.)
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While Swift may never reveal what — or who — happened to her in the past on June 9, she’s certainly moved on in current time. The musician has been dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce since summer 2023.
The athlete, 34 — who is seemingly the inspiration behind Swift’s “So High School” on Swift’s TTPD — has no problem with Swift referencing her past love life in her music.
“He heard everything [on the new record] before it was released. He is so proud of [her] and understands and accepts that being with her means being a part of her music,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly last month. “And he’s secure and fine with it.”
