Taylor Swift is busy doing a promo run for her chart-dominating seventh studio album Lover, and she’s stopped by BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge – essentially the UK’s ‘Like A Version’ – to perform a string of tracks from the album as well as a surprising Phil Collins cover.
The 2002 Collins track is a rework of the original by Leo Sayer, and Swift referred to it as “the most sad and beautiful song ever.”
“I really love exploring all different types of love, and especially on this album,” she said.
“And the type of love that is addressed in this song is unconditional love. And people say ‘unconditional love’ all the time, but I don’t think they really know that unconditional love truly is still loving someone even if they don’t love you anymore. That’s like the saddest thing ever, but would you love someone even if they said, ‘I don’t want to be with you anymore, I don’t love you anymore’? Would you still have that love for them?”
She also performed a few original tracks taken from Lover, such as ‘You Need To Calm Down’, ‘The Archer’, ‘London Boy’ and the title track, while also performing 2012’s ‘Holy Ground’, a deep-cut from Red.
You can listen to the mammoth radio session here, with performances starting at the two-hour mark.
