Taylor Swift’s 2019 Saturday Night Live performance was highly anticipated, especially after she revealed her setlist earlier in the week on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: “Lover” and a song she has never performed live, “False God.” But while Swift was playing for the in-studio audience and the viewers at home, there was an audience of one that she was most interested in — her boyfriend, Joe Alwyn.
Alwyn was in New York City to accompany Swift to the SNL after-party, and he probably sat in the audience to watch her set during the live broadcast as well. She performed entirely new renditions of her songs: on “Lover,” Swift transformed the song into stripped-down piano arrangement with a slower tempo so she could draw out the lyrics. And while she sang the words “I've loved you three summers now, honey, but I want 'em all,” she turned towards one specific point in the audience and smiled broadly. Was she singing directly to Alwyn in the audience? Maybe!
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Next, Swift sang “False God,” which was her first time performing the song live. It had a jazzier vibe, with a live saxophonist and drummer. Swift sang amid low-wattage light bulbs, making the set feel like a quiet nighttime walk through Central Park, especially when she sang, “I'm New York City, I still do it for you, babe.” The song itself is about the ups, downs, and, uh, horizontal polkas in a relationship; almost as if Swift was nodding to the fact that here she was, in her beloved New York City, trying to make a relationship work with someone who lives in London.
There’s no denying that Lover is an explosion of romance and all-consuming love. But the SNL performances of “Lover” and “False God” make it clear that her new music is about Alwyn, for Alwyn, and because of Alwyn. It’s a side of Taylor Swift that we rarely get to see.
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