Taylor Swift’s ‘SNL’ Monologue Shook Seth Meyers: ‘A Force of Nature’
In 2009, Taylor Swift delivered her “Monologue Song” (Taylor’s Version) to the Saturday Night Live stage — unleashing a cascade of cheeky jabs at her exes wrapped in an indelible satire of herself. She was just 19 and hosting the show for the first time, yet former SNL cast member Seth Meyers said her performance spoke to the “depths of her talent.”
When appearing on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show on Monday, the Late Night host said that Swift’s pitch for the opening was unlike anything he’d ever seen, or has ever seen since then. Meyers recalled the singer-songwriter approaching him and producer Lorne Michaels with an idea of turning her monologue into a song.
“It really speaks to what a force of nature she is and the depths of her talent,” said Meyers. “But here’s a 19-year-old who is, again, nobody is really helping out. Nobody gave her a manual on how to do it. And yet, she came to us and said, ‘I wrote a song for the opening monologue.’ And I remember saying, ‘Oh God, that’s great.’ And she said, ‘Can I play it for you?’” He continued, “She sings this song which is not only a beautiful song by a beautiful singer. It’s a perfect ‘SNL’ monologue, fully formed.”
“And it was, to this day, I’ve sort of never had a moment like that where someone brings you a fully gift-wrapped present and it’s exactly what you needed it to be,” Meyers said of the now 33-year-old megastar.
Earlier in the interview, Meyers admitted that the task of hosting SNL is “insane,” adding, “I worked on that show for 12.5 years. And then I think about three years after I left, I went back and I hosted for the first time. And if you ask me what it was like to host, I would tell you today — and I worked there longer than almost anybody — Howard, no one tells you anything. Like, even I, who had worked there, couldn’t believe how it works.”
Revisit Swift’s 2009 “Monologue Song,” or “La La La,” below.