Taylor Swift’s ‘SNL’ monologue was a gift, says Seth Meyers
When Late at night When host Seth Meyers appeared on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show this week, he discussed the high level of difficulty that the hosting challenge entails Saturday Night Live. But Taylor Swift, who hosted SNL In 2009, when she was just 19, the gig looked easy, Meyers told Stern.
While most hosts open their episode with monologues written by in-house staff, Swift wrote a song for the occasion, cleverly titled “Monologue Song,” Meyers recalled. In it, she addressed all the tabloid headlines at the time: the rumors that she was dating her dusk star Taylor Lautner, her breakup with Joe Jonas and the Kanye West VMAs onstage accident that happened just months earlier.
“I like to write songs about idiots who cheat on me / But I won’t say that in my monologue,” Swift sang on the SNL Stage. “I like to write their names in songs so that they are ashamed to go public. But I won’t say that in my monologue.”
“It really shows what a force of nature she is and how deep her talent is,” said Meyers, who was in the cast SNL at the time, said Stern. “Here’s a 19-year-old who no one is really helping; Nobody gave her instructions on how to do this show. And yet she came to us and said, “I’ve written a song for the opening monologue.” So we brought Taylor to Lorne [Michael]’s office, and she sings this song, which is not only a beautiful song by a beautiful singer, it’s perfect SNL Monologue. Fully formed.”
He continued: “To this day, I have never experienced a moment like this where someone brings you a completely gift-wrapped gift and it is exactly what you need. When she was done, I should have said, “Well, Taylor, just for you, I want to look at you and read what we wrote for you, just so you know how much worse it was.” Your song isn’t just Great, you can’t even imagine how shitty what we did for you is compared to what you did for yourself.’”
Meyers added that he came back and hosted for the first time in 2018, a few years after leaving the NBC sketch comedy show – only to realize how “crazy” of a gig it was.
“If you asked me what it’s like to host, I would tell you today, and I’ve worked there longer than almost anyone, ‘Howard, nobody tells you anything.’ Even I, who had worked there, couldn’t believe how it worked,” he said.
“A host sometimes said to me, ‘I don’t understand what I’m doing in this sketch,’ and in my head I wanted to say, ‘Just fucking do it,'” Meyers admitted. “And then when I was hosting, sometimes I realized I was like, ‘I don’t know what to do in this sketch.'”
Despite performance SNL a few times over the years – and recently make a cameo appearance on the show to introduce musical guest Ice Spice – this 2009 episode remains the only one to feature Swift as host. But perhaps Meyers’ recent comments will inspire her to develop a sequel to “Monologue Song” for the show’s current 49th season.
