Following the release of her seventh studio album Lover, Taylor Swift appeared on Saturday Night Live for the fifth time alongside first-time host Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
For her first performance, Swift sat a green piano for a stripped-down performance of the title track of her latest album. Swift played her raw rendition of “Lover” against a matching backdrop of scattered, airborne papers frozen in time.
The singer later returned to Studio 8H to debut her track “False God” live for the first time. Swift swapped the shamrock background for pitch black as she sauntered across the stage to a live sax for the jazz-tinged song.
In September, Swift gave a revealing interview to Rolling Stone about everything from her new album to politics, mental health and Kanye West.
“With this album, I felt like I sort of gave myself permission to revisit older themes that I used to write about, maybe look at them with fresh eyes. And to revisit older instruments — older in terms of when I used to use them,” Swift told Rolling Stone of Lover.
While she envisioned reputation as a “nighttime cityscape” inspired by old warehouse buildings, Lover found itself embracing wood floors. “Lover is, like, completely just a barn wood floor and some ripped curtains flowing in the breeze, and fields of flowers and, you know, velvet,” she added.
Swift also recently revealed that she wouldn’t be doing a traditional world tour for her latest record, announcing 2020’s “Lover Fest” stadium shows. The pop star will instead perform in a festival setting, beginning the tour in Belgium in June before heading stateside for concerts in Los Angeles on July 25th and 26th and Foxborough, Massachusetts July 31st and August 1st.