Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Mashups May Be Proof That She’s A Secret Gleek

Every night on the Eras Tour, Taylor Swift plays a three-and-a-half-hour show with 45 songs that span her entire career, which is a huge feat in itself. But the singer has managed to up the ante with her unpredictable mashups.

During her “Secret Songs” segment, Swift typically picks two songs that aren’t on her setlist and plays them acoustically on the guitar and piano. But since resuming the Eras Tour on Feb. 7 in Tokyo, Swift has chosen more than two tracks and incorporated them into mashups, often showcasing the narrative connections between new and old songs across her catalog.

At her four shows in Sydney, Swift’s mashups became a pattern, with her secret songs ranging from the ’80s sugar rush of “Is It Over Now?” mixed with “I Wish You Would” to the devastating one-two punch of “New Years’ Day” and “peace.”

This leads me to one conclusion: Swift is secretly a Gleek.

Glee’s Iconic Mashups

Before Swift started combining every song in her catalog, the Glee cast was seemingly mashing up the entire Great American Songbook. The first attempts came on the Season 1 episode “Vitamin D,” when the New Directions girls mixed Beyoncé’s “Halo” with Katrina and the Waves’ “Walking on Sunshine,” while the guys combined Usher’s “Confessions, Part II” with Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life.”

Both numbers were such hits that mashups quickly became a signature hallmark of Glee.

Combining songs was an effective tool for the show to turn famous songs into their own hits, and a few of them went down as some of the best musical numbers to ever be performed on Glee, most notably Naya Rivera and Amber Riley’s passionate medley of Adele’s hits “Rumour Has It” and “Someone Like You.”

Now, Swift’s mashups are receiving a similar reception among fans, who are thrilled about hearing new interpretations of their favorite songs. While the singer has never publicly declared her Glee fandom, it wouldn’t be that surprising if she took a page out of their playbook.

She Was Friends With Glee Stars

During the show’s run, Swift was friendly with star Cory Monteith, whom she paid tribute to after he passed away in 2013. She was even closer to Dianna Agron, who is rumored to be the subject of her 2012 hit “22.” She also worked with Chord Overstreet on a Thelma & Louise recreation with Shania Twain for the 2011 CMT Music Awards. (Yes, that really happened.)

Swift even visited the Glee set while they were filming a chaotic Season 5 episode, as Kevin McHale recapped on his And That’s What You Really Missed podcast with Jenna Ushkowitz, saying he felt “very famous” around her. “She was filming on Paramount that day, and we all knew her through Dianna,” he said. “I was like, ‘Don’t worry guys, we’re friends. It’s fine.’”

Swift’s Other Connections To Glee

Perhaps the most interesting evidence of Swift’s fandom came during an Eras Tour show in April, when she put an L to her forehead and jokingly called her dancer a “loser” while performing “Look What You Made Me Do.” This, of course, was Glee’s trademark pose, used on many promo posters.

Glee used a couple of her songs, like when Rivera’s Santana turned “Mine” into a moving ode to Heather Morris’ Brittany, proving that the show was also a fan of hers. In fact, creator Ryan Murphy said one of his top regrets was not doing an entire Swift-themed episode.

Sure, there’s no certifiable proof that Swift was inspired by Glee. Regardless of what motivated the mashups, Glee walked so the Eras Tour’s secret songs could run.