People say Taylor Swift is a versatile performer who excels in any live setting so that’s why her concert tickets always sell out quickly.
This is proved again as she took part in the NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert. With just her acoustic guitar, she delivered an intimate and captivating set. She played stripped-down versions of hits like “The Man,” “Lover,” and “All Too Well.”
Starting with “The Man” from her album “Lover,” Swift shared the song’s inspiration. She said “There is a song that I had wanted to write conceptually for a long time…it’s something that I’ve thought about 700 million times a day for the last 10 years of my life.”
The audience laughed, and she continued, “I was always wondering, can I write a song about this?… What angle would I take… So I decided the most fun thing to do would be to imagine what my life would be like, and what people would say about my life, if I did all the same things, but if I was a man”.
Watch the video below, which has garnered 22 million views:
Opening with an acoustic version of “The Man” from her 2019 album Lover, Taylor Swift humorously critiqued gender double standards, complete with a well-timed hair toss and a nod to Leonardo DiCaprio. She then moved to the piano, smiling as she played the album’s title track, explaining the emotional “guitar-string scars” mentioned in the song’s bridge.
Picking up her guitar for “Death by a Thousand Cuts,” Swift addressed a question that has lingered throughout her career: “What will you ever do if you get happy?” Through the song’s reflective lyrics and relentless questioning, she provided a clear answer: She’ll continue to excel at crafting superb story-songs.