"I love you already, you know? I donāt want to come on too strong, but I already love you. First things first, happy Pride Month, everyone! On this tour, I get to look out into the most stunningly beautiful, brilliant crowds of people who are living their authentic lives. They are loving who they want to love, they are identifying how they identify, and allies who get to support them in and celebrate them in that. It is the most beautiful experience for me to look out into crowds onto this tour, Iām looking out tonight, Iām seeing so many incredible just, individuals who are living authentically and beautifully. And this is a safe space for you. This is a celebratory space for you. And one of the things that makes me feel so prideful is getting to be with you, and watching you interact with each other, and being so loving, and so thoughtful, and so caring. And so being with you during Pride Month, getting to sing the words to You Need To Calm Down, where there are lyrics like, āCan you just not step on his gown?ā or āShade never made anybody less gay,ā and you guys are screaming those lyrics. It is such solidarity, and such support of one another, and such encouraging, beautiful, acceptance, and peace, and safety, and I wish that every place was safe and beautiful for people in the LGBTQ community I really wish that, because you canāt about Pride Month without talking about pain. There, right now, and recently, and in the recent years, there have been so many harmful pieces of legislation that have put people in the LGBTQ and queer community at risk. Itās painful for everyone, every ally, every loved one, every person in these communities, and thatās why Iām always posting, āThis is when the midterms are. This is when these important key primaries are.ā Because we can support as much as we want during Pride Month, but if weāre not doing our research on these elected officialsāAre they advocates? Are they allies? Are they protectors of equality? Do I want to vote for them? I love you guys so much, and happy Pride Month, and just, I adore you, I really do. So we have a lot to catch up on guys, we really do. Itās been about five years since Iāve gotten to see you in a live stadium kind of space like this, and since the last five years, Iāve put out four new albums of new music. And you know, we had a pandemic, we had a world pandemic that was the focus of everything. That was the most important conversation happening, and that was obviously going to take precedent, so I didnāt think about the fact that we may never do tours again. I put that out of my head and I just figured that if the only way that I could connect with you was to make albums, and put them out, and write songs, and that was the way I was going to do it. I was just going to make as much music as I possibly could. So we have a few new members of the musical family that I wanted to introduce you to and their names are Lover, folklore, evermore, and Midnights! And even though I wasnāt thinking about live music at the time when I was making these albums, there was one song that when I wrote it, I thought, āIt would be so much fun to sing this at Soldier Field with beautiful people singing it with meā So letās do it! This is called champagne problems."
ā Taylor before playing champagne problems (and celebrating Pride Month) in Chicago, IL on June 2nd
