-Welcome back. Taylor Swift is here! Come on!
"Red" is out right now, actually.
It's officially coming out right now while this airing.
-Oh. Yeah, I think it's out.
-Your fans are amazing fans. I will just say that.
I know you said it earlier, but they obviously are so excited
that you're here on our show,
so we're getting a lot of buzz from your fans.
And they were like, "Wait. What are they going to talk about?
What's going on? I heard this. [ Blabbering ]
This is ten seconds long."
There's Easter eggs that maybe aren't even really Easter eggs.
-Yeah, it's sort of a tradition
that we started a very long time ago.
I think the first time that I started dropping
sort of cryptic clues and things in my music
is when I was 14 and 15 putting together my first album.
And I wanted to put -- I wanted to do something
that incentivized fans to read the lyrics
because my lyrics are what I'm most proud of
out of everything that I do, every aspect of my job,
so I really wanted people to read the lyrics.
And, um, when I was a kid, I used to leaf through
CD booklets and just read the teeny, tiny print
and just obsess over it.
And so I wanted to incentivize them.
So in my lyrics, for my first, you know, several albums,
I would have all lower-case-letter lyrics,
except for capital letter,
capital letter, capital letter every once in a while.
And if they circled the capital letter,
and wrote them down, it spelled out a secret code,
a secret passage.
-That's so fun. -It was really --
it was really fun, and it would either tell them
a story about the album
or a hint about what the song was about.
And so that's when it started.
But when it got out of control was...
-[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
-Was when I started to realize that it wasn't just me
that had fun with this, that they had fun with it, too.
-Oh, yeah. -And I should never
have learned that because then I couldn't stop.
And then all I started thinking of was how do I hint at things?
Like, how far is too far in advance?
Can I hint at something three years in advance?
Can I even plan things out that far?
I think I'm gonna try to do it.
The first time that we did a crazy video like that
was a video called "Look What You Made Me Do,"
and I started playing with doing nods
to former musical eras I've been in, in my career
and all kinds of weird stuff
for them to just go through the video and be like,
"That over there! What's that? What's that? What's that?
Does this connect to that? What does that mean?"
-I do that. -Really?
-Yes! I did that with "Folklore."
I go, "Wait. What? Betty? What?"
-There's a lot. There's a lot going --
There's, like, a fictional love triangle
between three fictional teenagers
in the "Folklore" album. -I know all about it.
-There's all kinds of, like, really, really --
-Yeah, we go really into the weeds over it.
And look. I think that it is perfectly reasonable for people
to be normal music fans
and to have a normal relationship to music.
But if you want to go down
a rabbit hole with us, come along.
-Taylor is your person. -The water's great.
-Yeah. The waters fine. -Jump in.
-Yeah. -We're all mad here.
-Exactly right. -Yeah.
-Also, with "All Too Well,"
with the short film, I noticed --
I noticed a ton of Easter eggs in this.
-Oh, it's ridiculous how many there are.
-Whoo! It's so good.
I'm like, "That's a thing. That's another thing."
I want to watch this like 30 times.
-I really love that you -- -I'm geeking out.
-Thank you. -I'm a uber fan. Yeah.
-That's so awesome. -My daughters are so
into it, too, which is, like, the best.
'Cause I'm like, "Yeah, let's put in..."
Oh, they love you so much.
My little daughter, she goes, "Dad, I have a special talent.
I can tell whenever it's a Taylor song."
-[ Gasps ] -And I go, "You can?"
But she doesn't realize that's all we play.
-Oh, my God.
That's so amazing. Please tell her I said thank you.
-Yeah. She loves you. -That's so wonderful.
-This is a giant week. You have "Red," right?
"Taylor's Version." Coming out.
You have "All Too Well," a short film coming out.
-Yeah. -You're performing
on "Saturday Night Live." -Yeah.
-This Saturday. -This Saturday.
-This is your fifth time performing.
I've seen you perform live --
By the way, do you remember this?
This made me laugh so -- I just love you so much.
We were at the Time 100 event.
You were performing. And you were fantastic.
And you played on the piano,
and you actually kicked your heels off,
and you were just playing and you were awesome.
But before that, I go, "Taylor, what's up? Good to see you.
How are you?" And I saw Tree, and I go, "Hey, what's up?"
I go, "What are you doing tonight?"
And you go, "I don't know. Probably go play pool
or something if you want to hang out."
I go, "No, no. I meant, what songs are you doing tonight?"
Like, I'm -- I'm so old.
I can't hang out with you after. I'm so old.
I just wanted to know what songs.
-It is too late o'clock. I was just seeing, how are you?
-Grandpa needs to go to sleep.
I'm like, "What are you doing tonight?"
-I was like, "I don't know! Where's the party?!
I'll throw it! You throw it! We can throw a joint party!"
-So, this Saturday. "Saturday Night Live."
What two songs -- Can we hint to what songs you're performing?
-I love to hint.
Um, which two songs?
What if... -Mm-hmm.
-...it was not two songs
as much as it was one song that is the length of three songs?
[ Laughter ]
[ Audience ohhs ]
-I think I know exactly what you mean by this.
I got it! I got it! I know exactly --
I know...all too well... what you mean, Betty.
Taylor Swift, everyone! Taylor is performing
on "Saturday Night Live" this weekend.
"Red (Taylor's Version)" is officially out now!
More "Tonight Show" after the break.
Come on back, everybody!