Distilling Taylor Swift's extraordinary career in three songs is impossible.

But the list below attempts to highlight a trio of era-defining hits from the superstar. The Eras Tour ran from March 2023 to December 2024 and became the highest-grossing tour in history. She's an artist still in her 30s, yet successful enough to already have "eras."

A feature of Swift's tour was the "surprise song" performances. In this segment, she transformed a stadium show into an intimate acoustic mini-set. This list is not that. There's nothing secret about the tracks listed here.

These songs represent snapshots of pivotal moments in Swift's catalog. The moments where she became an icon and cultural force while achieving full independence from the music industry. This is Taylor Swift becoming an institution.

Maybe it was just "Taylor's Version" all along.

"Cruel Summer" marks one of many high points in Swift's blockbuster creative partnership with producer Jack Antonoff. St. Vincent co-wrote and played guitar on the track, which fused Swift and Antonoff's pop instincts with Annie Clark's angular art pop. Lover sounds like freedom, but it's hard for the world's biggest pop star to be completely free. Most romances come with uncertainty and vulnerability, but the lights of Swift's immense fame only increase the anxiety. Her superpower is relatability.

Killing me slow, out the window

I'm always waiting for you to be waiting below

Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes

What doesn't kill me makes me want you more

A Swiftian reinvention. Swift's fifth album documents her birth year as the singer moved away from pop country and teamed with Swedish hitmaker Max Martin. She created a synth-pop masterpiece and "Blank Space" presents Swift's satire on how the media sees her. Meanwhile, the 1989 World Tour became the highest-grossing tour of 2015. If she wasn't already, 1989 cemented Swift's legacy as a pop icon.

New money, suit, and tie

I can read you like a magazine

Ain't it funny? Rumors fly

And I know you heard about me

So hey, let's be friends

I'm dying to see how this one ends

Grab your passport and my hand

I can make the bad guys good for a weekend

Red foreshadowed Swift's move to electronic pop, but the vibe was still rooted in country. Though she had already crossed over into the pop charts, Red marks the kind of independence she asserted on Speak Now -- an album written by herself. Max Martin and Shellback co-wrote "I Knew You Were Trouble" with Swift. It fully sheds the twang of her early period. The first of three final albums with Big Machine. Within a decade, she'd take ownership of her early albums by rerecording them.

Once upon a time

A few mistakes ago

I was in your sights

You got me alone