Taylor Swift Sings "Tonight" With a Twist
I'm a sucker for a good ol' lyrical rearrangement. And in this promotional spot for MTV's VMA show on Sept. 13, Taylor Swift has taken "Tonight" from West Side Story and turned it into her own funny-but-true thing. Like when she sings, "Tonight, tonight, I'll sing my song tonight/There will be no teardrops on my guitar." But the best is her dramatic lean out of the New York City cab backseat window as her voice soars on the line about making this VMA song take flight. I just hope the show itself lives up to the hype in these Broadway-style promos.
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silvercharger says:
I agree with you Alison, she knows how to make a song her own. I know a lot of die-hard fans of West Side Story the musical were offended by the VMAs using the song as an advertisement and changing the words but although I always enjoyed watching the musical I also see the fun and actually the homage they are paying to it with Taylor’s version of Tonight as well as the other versions by other VMA artists. Some people seem to only be able to see validity in music from one perspective, they don’t seem to understand that it is all the individual perspectives and varied voices of every songwriter, performer and artist that gives music it’s wide appeal and gives it the ability to relate to everyone.
I’ve never been much of a fan of the VMA show or for any awards show for that matter, but then many people love them, and it does give various artists a chance to showcase their own personality and sense of humor.
Hannah says:
silvercharger i am giving you a standing ovation at the moment :)
goldie says:
way to go taylor you sound awsome love the way you are singing this song and making it your own like the producers wanted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
haha says:
as if taylor can make any note soar…
countrygirl says:
sure she can haha. Just like a cheerleader yelling at the crowd. No teardrops on my GUITARRRRRRR, no support, from the back of the throat instead of supporting vibrato over the diaphragm. I wonder if she even know how to use the diaphragm…apparently not.
countrygirl says:
she even looks like a high school cheerleader in that pic, with her mouth wide open…like she is catching flies…lol
Big AJ fan says:
i’m pretty sure you already blogged about this before. why the repeat?
countrygirl says:
Actually Alison has blogged about this twice already. Must be that the hype is dieing down and she’s now resorted to repeating herself. LOL
countrygirl says:
LOL, those who recognize Taylor’s baaaadddd voice are the ones on here who CAN sing and KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT MUSIC.
goldie says:
the cma festival taylor was awsome that is one of the best times live that taylor singing was great!!!! the last 2 times I have seen taylor she sounded even better!!! taylor is so awsome!!!! hottest artist out their!!!!!!
star says:
taylor is great at everything she does everyone wants to work with her that is great! taylor sounds to much older than 19, on this track, she is very lovely.
drdjwu says:
countrygirl! You outdo yourself! you post 4 of the first 7 comments and you fail to make even a single one factual, insightful or even clever. But you do keep saying “LOL” a lot. (Why??? Do you really believe that an inane — and quite rude — comment about Taylor “with her mouth wide open” looking like she’s “catching flies” is funny? “LOL”? What GRADE are YOU in, 4th or 5th?)
Of course, anyone with an open mind and at least one good ear can tell that Taylor delivers the goods BIG TIME in this video — probably why MTV is featuring her so prominently — and all your broken-record blathering about vibrato and diaphragms is becoming SO ludicrous and tedious. You know, you’re beginning to sound like someone who took a couple of singing lessons, thought she was gonna conquer the world and struck out baaaaaaadly, and now resents Taylor for getting everything she wanted.
Hannah says:
drdjwu the last couple of sentences are so true :)
star wars says:
Taylor is more confidant now than ever and it showed last night in her performance. She’s growing into a strong and beautiful woman. She is a superstar and a great rolemodel for all our young.
steve says:
i’m sorry to break it to all of you that are saying she sounded better live last night - they definitely messed with the sound quality last night to make it better for tv. everyone sounded auto-tuned, which is the norm for a lot of artists, sadly.
Noah says:
Taylor sure delivered the goods with this ‘Tonight’ promo. The question is, is there anything the young lady can’t do? Instead of Taylor being just the triple threat I think all these nasty childish comments are because of jealousy for their favorite artist since Taylor’s more like a mega-watt threat since she sings, plays multiple instruments, writes her own music, produces, manages her own career, runs her own headlinging tour at 19, has been on 38 magazine covers, models, has her own clothes line, has written two books, tv actress, now has hit the big screen, and EVERYBODY wants to work with her, and Taylor has done all this with grace and love for her fans.
To a lot of these people who are afraid for their favorite artist BE SCARED, VERY VERY SCARED! Just kidding haha, Actually what I was going to say is there IS enough room out there for them all. So please go promote the ones you do like and either tolorate or ignore the ones you don’t but don’t belittle or demean yourselves by these childish comments.
By the way, well said, drdjwu.
Congrats to Miss Taylor Swift, may you have a very long and prosperous career.
star says:
taylor sang great in this video for the awards, there are alot of bad young women out there (artsits) like britney but taylor is so sweet down to earth and so talented she is a great role model for young girls! taylor twist on this song is great love it and her!
barb b says:
taylor is no threat to
any one
barb b says:
that red lipstick does
nothing for her
star wars says:
Gee Barb we all know where your taste.
star wars says:
Sorry forgot the is.
timcun says:
Taylor sang three songs on the CMA Music Festival show last night on ABC. On the first and third song she kept taking breath after breath and it became very distracting. After a while my husband started mocking her and taking a breath every time she did. I have the show taped and may go back to count the number of breaths she took in each song.
Alex says:
Was she auto tuned at the CMA festival? It didn’t even sound like her during Love Story, and she was singing on key(though still through her nose). That was kind of a give away.
Taylor4ever says:
Taylor never lets her millions of fans down. She continues to grow as an artist at nineteen she’s done more than lot of country artist have done in there whole carreer.
goldie says:
taylor was awsome at the cma festival wow what a great voice!!!!she sang 3 songs and they were all great!!
alicia says:
taylor is awsome I love this song
Lilli says:
umm no she doesn’t
barb b says:
i saw a pitcure of ts in
us magazine in a red dress
and a band around her forehead
and flaming red lipstick to
me she looks like a clown;;;;;
barb b says:
i am glad you think so
i dont
Dusint says:
Wow… yet another reason why Carrie Underwood ROCKS! :)
Lilli says:
barb b hows it going being an undertaker im pressuming that’s your job, i saw the way you dress
drdjwu says:
barb b
how can you call
someone a clown
for wearing red lipstick
when you name yourself
after a glittery doll toy?
goldie says:
this blog is not about cu so get back on the suject, taylor is awsome and always will be!!!
barb b says:
what are you talking about
iwill show you who is queen
of country wait until nov 3
and you will see
Lilli says:
if people keep saying i will turn the whole of my school against country. It’s not popular anyway so it won’t be hard
drdjwu says:
It used to be , “She can’t sing” or “she’s just a marketing creation”, blah-blah-bah. But now, after a long run of outstanding live concerts and recorded-live TV Specials in which Taylor nailed every note, the “she can’t sing” baloney is just getting more and more laughable.
Meanwhile, last week both Reba and Colbie Caillat — the owners of last week’s and this week’s #1 albums, respectively, on the Billboard 200 chart — openly praised how Taylor, in addition to being talented and genuine, is also REALLY intelligent, with a great head for business and an “old soul’s” understanding of the current music industry. (So much for the manufactured puppet theory).
Reba, who doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone, even admitted that SHE learned some things from Taylor! (Isn’t it great when you see people like Reba, whose minds are forever young?).
So now the bashers (old people with even older minds) return to the old complaint, “she’s not country”,with “country” apparently defined as anyone who doesn’t sound exactly like Ernest Tubbs or Patsy Cline. But Taylor, who loves country music, is still going to do whatever her artistic inner self tells her to do. She’s not going to gimmick her song all up with a pedal steel just to placate an extremist, rigid (Petrified?) wing of the Country Music scene. Nobody controls Taylor but Taylor.
Happy complaining, wing nuts!
S says:
No she doesn’t nail every note. She runs around the stage slinging her hair around and her fans are so impressed with her rock-star persona that they don’t seem to hear what others hear.
Hey! says:
I guess with “help” anyone can sound good!!!!
Hannah says:
yeah because we don’t all have the same hearing system
drdjwu says:
Hey! S! Hey! Hey! I got an idea! If ANYONE can sound so wonderful with “help”, why don’t you two geniuses go sell 8 million albums?
Remember to buy long wigs so you can around the stage and sling your hair around, cause you know the public, they are just so durn easy to fool! Like me! I have to admit, I thought she sounded fantastic on the MTV promo and fantastic at the CMA fest. Of course, dumb me, I actually bothered to LISTEN!
Abby says:
Some of us have great taste in music then there is taylor swift fans who cant tell when something is fake or not!!! SHES AS FAKE AS A THREE DOLLAR BILL!!!!
Trotter says:
Nothing fake about all those sales figures and attendance figures she keeps amassing.
Nothing fake about the critics raving about her concerts and albums all over the world.
Nothing fake about all the “first ever’s” and milestones she keeps achieving on the charts.
Nothing fake about the happy faces of all her millions of fans after they see her in concert! In a world where everything is superficial, Taylor’s one of rare real deals.
Abby says:
FAKE! FAKE! FAKE!!
snl says:
way to go taylor the numbers DO NOT LIE!!!!!
thetruefan says:
Numbers just indicate a good marketing strategy. She still can’t sing.
drdjwu says:
Cant’t sing!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!Millions LOVE her singing on record and in concerts. There are singers with perfect pitch, enormous range, and wonderful mellifluous tones, and they still can’t begin to match Taylor when it comes to connecting with her audience. Her style is unique and unparalleled when it comes to expressiveness. And she doesn’t need protools or autotune or any trickery to do it.
brenda says:
SHE CANT SING WITHOUT HELP!!!!
Hey! says:
She got you people brainwashed into thinking she can sing but she cant! My kids and I went to her concert and they were not expressed at all. In fact we left the concert early. You can tell she was using something to help her!!! But she needs all the help she can get cause she cant sing!!!!
drdjwu says:
Taylor hit every note, no help used at all. You say otherwise, prove it.
I dvr’ed the whole show, play it over and over, every time it’s the the same result. Taylor sang great, great,great.
Now I understand that you folks don’t get the fact she’s the most popular artist in the world right now.I understand that anyone who doesn’t sound like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Ernest Tubbs or Eddy Arnold can’t sing or aren’t country to you. I feel your pain. But a lot of us feel the same way about your “music” and “singers” and run out of the room when they come on!
Funny says:
Taylor leans out the cab to sing a high note….windows crack, glass shatters…is it a terrorist attack. No Taylor live! I have heard her live. She is awful.
drdjwu says:
Comment above stands. You like Eddy Arnold and Gene Autry, I like Taylor.
Coming up with new screen names isn’t going to increase the value of your minority opinion in the real world, where people pay good money to buy albums and attend concerts. You CLAIM to have heard her live, but we know she SOLD OUT Madison Square in ONE MINUTE, and all those people who ACTUALLY heard her live — just LAST WEEK –went bonkers for her! So did almost all of the usually jaded NY critics and approximately 40 experienced music reviewers from The Rolling Stone, MTV, the New York Times, etc., etc.,… even a Wall Street Journal blogger!
And we know the same thing happened a couple days later in Hartford, CT, and then again at Penn State’s Bryce Jordan Center, an auditorium that has featured shows by Garth Brooks, Elton John and Billy Joel, and just recently, Bruce Springsteen — but tickets for Taylor’s show sold out faster than any other show in its history –20 minutes! And the fans who ACTUALLY SAW HER LIVE AT PENN STATE LAST WEEK also gushed praise.
One mother who brought her 6-year-old daughter to see Taylor said: “Thirty-two years of concerts I’ve seen and she’s made me an ABSOLUTE FAN!
You see? REAL PEOPLE disagree with you in the millions.
Hannah says:
no actually Funny or Abby or whoever you are i didn’t hear off any terrorist attacks when she sang
snl says:
taylor is a great young woman with many talents, so sweet and that is one of the reasons I like her so much!! besides her great voice,great songwriting and the list goes on and on!!!!! her grandmother would be very proud!
diamond says:
taylor is so unbeleiveable in this clip!!! her voice is so amazing I don’t think I have ever heard her sing that great before!!!!!!!wow taylor you are just getting better and better all the time !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! way to go taylor!!!!!! taylor rule!!!!!!
Michelle says:
ow…that hurt my ears!
goldie says:
barb, look who nom. for eoty I told you so and she has 4 nom. what about your little cu oh ya 2. that’s all I need to say!!!!!
snl says:
YES LOOK WHO HAS 4 NOMINATIONS WAY TO GO TAYLOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND IAM THINKING TAYLOR WILL BE THE BIGGEST WINNER!!!!!!
Chain in Thailand says:
hi, i love your song very much.
ti’s anything for myself.