Eras Tour box office success is thanks to Taylor Swift’s breakup songs

Taylor Swift’s The Eras TourThe film is on track to have an opening weekend gross exceeding $100 million. This would make it instantly the highest grossing concert movie of all time. It’s not a surprise when you look at the success of the tour it’s based on, which sold the most tickets ever for an artist in a single day and is projected to earn $2 billion by this month. The show’s set list spans the many “eras” of the 33-year-old Swift’s career, with room for hits like “You Belong With Me,” “Bad Blood,” and “Anti-Hero.”

While Swift’s songwriting and genre curveballs have defined the many eras of her still-early career, so has public fascination with her non-artistic life. In particular, Swift’s romantic history has grown to mythological proportions, her reported relationship with NFL player Travis Kelce making as many headlines as the The Eras Tour box-office records. Swift’s photos and videos from Kansas City Chiefs matches went viral as they have done in previous years, along with many other paparazzi pictures of her and current flames.

Swift has been joking for years that she will write a Kelce song once the two break up. It’s a joke that Swift is known to repeat. Just searching for “Taylor Swift break up song” on Twitter unleashes a barrage of mockery in anticipation of it. People are mocking the situation online. already using ChatGPT to “find out” what one would sound like.

What might seem like mockery to one person, is actually a source of admiration for another. This openness to relationships and the (extremely likely) problems they may have? For Swifties, that’s the draw.

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Swift’s writings on breakups are numerous. In “Tim McGraw,” the first song on her self-titled debut album, her in-song character hopes that a high school boyfriend remembers her every time they hear a song by the country artist. It seems that the track was inspired by actual events. Swift and other artists are not the only ones who write autobiographical, raw songs. Being dumped has been a major source of emotion in contemporary art. But Swift’s popularity has turned her into the patron saint of rejection, to the extent that every hit song inspires detective work from her fans in order to dissect just who the lyrics are about.

“Last Kiss”? According to reports, it was inspired by the love she had for Joe Jonas during her late aughts. “Back To December”? Twilight series star Taylor Lautner. “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”? The paparazzi who surrounded her during Jake Gyllenhaal’s visit. “I Knew You Were Trouble”? John Mayer or Gyllenhaal, perhaps. Even Kanye West, who didn’t date Swift and simply publicly feuded with her for a while, apparently got the treatment in “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.” The list goes on.

As such, Swift’s career has become Rear Window for people that like celebrity gossip, despite her typically remaining publicly vague on whoever she’s supposedly throwing under the bus in her songs. It’s certainly treated that way by those who laugh about her array of romances. A new significant other? They’re going to eventually hear a verse or two about how they messed up. And as Swift enters her mid-30s, a time when society nudges most people toward the idea of “settling down” if they haven’t already, the joke gets a little more mean. It’s a woman on a cycle of bad dates, a reputation that Swift has spoken about numerous times, ranging back to tracks like “Shake It Off”: “Got nothing in my brain… I go on too many dates/But I can’t make ‘em stay/That’s what people say.”

Taylor Swift/AMC Theatres

Her detractors may wonder why Swift hasn’t gotten married or found “the one” yet, but consider the numbers: 19% of women between 30 and 49 are single (32% are single between 18 and 29). A 2011 study found that unmarried adults between the ages 18-35 had a 36.5 percent chance of ending their relationship in a period of 20 months. The songs she sings about the struggles of love and her ongoing quests for romance are closer to real life than any other traditional media.

Even if you’re not calling it quits, most relationships will have at least some brand of problems along the way, problems that get magnified when you’re in the public eye like Swift is on a constant basis. Swift’s ability to croon about them, through a high school lens in her first album Taylor SwiftFrom her earliest record to the most recent,. Midnights — in which she daydreams about a past relationship in “Maroon,” wonders about her own romantic choices in “Midnight Rain,” and mentions unrequited love in “You’re On Your Own, Kid” — is one of the reasons why Swift’s audience remains so huge. Just as one makes art about failed romance, there’s something intensely freeing about Swift’s mix of country-infused guitar ballads and brash pop epics about how much it sucks to be left stranded or be unsure about your relationship.

For Swift fans, the appeal doesn’t really lie in the break-ups (Though there are few better sensations than shouting a song at the top of your lungs when you’ve got the blues because it nails exactly how you’ve been feeling). Rather, it’s all an ode to the general messiness of relationships, something Swift has turned into perhaps her finest art. For those that have stuck with her since the beginning, back when she was promoting through MySpace and held up as the future of country music, all the way until now, as she snaps photo ops with Beyoncé at her film’s red carpet premiere, her consistency in admitting that relationships can be hard is far more important than mean-spirited allegations that she flirts too much.

Reviewers for Taylor Swift – The Eras TourThere is a lot of praise for concert films, which are said to be the second best thing after real tours. And why wouldn’t they be? Swift’s music reflects a common experience for many of her fans. In “Anti-Hero,” Swift sings “I have this thing where I get older, but just never wiser.” That’s poignant; the chaos of connection means that we’re all likely to run into things that confound and embrace us in equal measure. If Swift can remain a voice for dealing with that, Swifties wouldn’t have her music any other way.