March 17 may be reserved for honoring the patron saint of Ireland, but this year, Saint Patrick will have to share his special day with another heavenly body: Taylor Swift, who’s kicking off her Eras tour on Friday in Glendale, Arizona. It seems Glendale’s mayor is a Swiftie: He declared Glendale “Swift City” two days ahead of the show. As for Swift, to commemorate the kickoff, she released four new(ish) songs: two rerecorded tracks from the 2012’s The Hunger Games soundtrack, a rerecorded version of “If This Was a Movie” from the 2010 deluxe version of Speak Now, and a scrapped song from 2019’s Lover called “All of the Girls You Loved Before.”
Why, you may be wondering, did Swift pluck this seemingly arbitrary selection of not very popular songs to release from what is believed to be a massive library of original and rerecorded music? Knowing her, there’s a very specific reason, but that’s for the Swifties to figure out. My only guess is that she has been tapped to contribute to the soundtrack of the upcoming Hunger Games prequel. Or could she be … directing??
Maybe Swift wants to remind us just how much unreleased music she has stored away in her little recording lair waiting to be rabidly consumed by the masses. Let’s give these guys a listen, shall we? I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the tour that took down Ticketmaster.