Music

Watch Taylor Swift's Surprisingly Charming 'Tiny Desk' Concert

The superstar played four songs, three from her new album 'Lover' and one from 'Red.'
JT
Chicago, US
Watch Taylor Swift's Surprisingly Charming 'Tiny Desk' Concert
Screengrap via NPR.

NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts have been around since 2008, and their intimate, live-streamed sets have been a staple of fans looking for a stripped-down look at their favorite artists. But while artists like Wilco, Andy Shauf, Big Thief, and more under-the-radar acts typically grace host Bob Boilen's actually-not-that-tiny desk, this year, the show has been getting mainstream acts to play the show. Just a couple weeks ago, The Jonas Brothers performed acoustic songs on a break from their "Happiness Begins" Tour—but now, the program has their biggest get yet in Taylor Swift.

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It's frankly wild to see someone as famous as Taylor Swift in such an intimate context. For her four-song performance, she sang, “The Man,” “Lover,” and “Death by a Thousand Cuts,” from her most recent album Lover, and “All Too Well,” which appeared on her 2012 LP Red. It's a pretty charming set, as Swift seems stoked to be playing something other than a gigantic arena. She also prefaced every song with ample and actually-illuminating context, mentioning that she "just decided to take this as an opportunity to show you guys how the songs sounded when I first wrote them." Watch the entire thing below.