It’s Thanksgiving in America and where are we? Deep in the woods with Taylor Swift, in a secluded rustic cabin in upstate New York, strumming through her most personal and heartfelt and just-plain-superb album yet, Folklore. On Tuesday, Swift announced she had a November surprise up her sleeve: a live special on Disney+, playing the Folklore songs for the first time, face to face with her two key collaborators on the album: the National’s Aaron Dessner and her longtime wingman Jack Antonoff. They worked together long-distance to cut this album in the early days of the pandemic. But they never got to play the songs together or even meet in the same room — until now.
Taylor, always a master at playing the strategic long game, timed this move perfectly. Not only did she announce this special on the four-month anniversary of Folklore, it’s exactly 10 years after the Maple Latte Thanksgiving that gave us “All Too Well.” And just like in that classic song, she’s getting lost upstate, going deep into these songs. (Wearing plaid, no less.) As she says early on, sitting on the cabin porch with Dessner and Antonoff, “I think it’s really important that we play it. It will take that for me to realize it’s a real album. Seems like a big mirage.”
But The Long Pond Studio Sessions isn’t just a footnote to the original album — it’s a stunning musical statement in its own right, full of stripped-down acoustic warmth. No matter how much you’ve absorbed Folklore into your bodily chemistry ever since the day she surprise-released it back in July, the songs feel new. There’s a VH1 Storytellers vibe to the way she breaks down the songs, talking on the porch or in the yard beside the barn. But the performances are revelatory — in this spare setting, the level of Taylor genius comes through loud and clear.
She plays Folklore with Antonoff and Dessner at the National’s Long Pond Studio in New York’s Hudson Valley, filmed back in September. (Needless to say, the film is directed — and owned — by Taylor Swift.) She soaks up the rural ambience — it even begins with the sound of chirping crickets. She finally reveals the secret identity of her songwriter partner William Bowery. As most of us already assumed, it’s her boyfriend Joe Alwyn. When she says, “William Bowery is Joe, as we know,” Antonoff isn’t sure whether he should pretend to be surprised — so he pretends to pretend. It’s a weirdly sweet moment.
But Swift goes way beyond basic “how I wrote the song” anecdotes — she thinks out loud about not just how, but *why* she needed to write such sad songs in the first place. As Taylor tells the boys on the porch, “When lockdown happened, I just found myself completely listless and purposeless — and that was in the first three days of it.” So she sat down to write and these songs just spilled out. She dreamed it all up in isolation — “rockdown,” as her Rolling Stone cover co-star Paul McCartney likes to call it. “There’s something about the complete and total uncertainty about life that causes endless anxiety,” she says. But all the more reason to get back to work. “Because if we’re going to have to recalibrate everything, we should start with what we love most first.” She adds, “It turned out everybody needed a good cry, as well as us.”
The songs come alive in this setting, especially when Dessner cuts loose on guitar, never crowding the vocal yet adding nuance — this version of “Illicit Affairs” goes so far beyond the studio original, it’s practically a new song. She goes deep into the feminist rage behind “Mad Woman” and the post-addiction struggle of “This Is Me Trying.” She discusses “My Tears Ricochet,” and how she had it planned as Track 5 from the day she wrote it. In “Seven,” the part of the story she really zooms in on is the image of herself as a little kid throwing tantrums, asking, “When did I stop being so outraged that I would throw myself on the floor and throw the cereal at my mom?”
“August,” one of the album’s most amazing moments, definitely goes somewhere new. Swift explains the Betty/James love triangle, and adds a new twist: “I’ve been in my head calling the girl from August ‘Augusta,’ or ‘Augustine.’ I’ve just been naming her that in my head.” (Could she be the Romantic poet Augusta Leigh, Lord Byron’s sister? That would fit the 19th-century poetic scene of “The Lakes.”) The way Swift sees the story, Betty ends up getting back together with James. Yeah, well — Betty might get the guy, but Augusta gets the song, and that’s a win for Augusta.
In this version of “August,” these two guys are both brilliant at listening close to her, in the details of how they respond on guitar. It builds to the climax when you think Augusta is finally driving away, until she circles back for that one last “Get in the car!” As Taylor reveals, she improvised that bit in the vocal booth. (Also hearing Dessmer play his sparsely eloquent guitar solo at the end really reveals what a “Torn” tribute this song is. Honestly, Taylor invented the Nineties.)
The deepest revelation here: “Mirrorball,” the cautiously unflashy ballad that’s not just the emotional peak of Folklore, but one of her greatest songs ever. (Third-best, in fact.) She calls it a spiritual twin to “This Is Me Trying,” the album’s most overlooked highlight. “On Folklore, there are a lot of songs that reference each other, or lyrical parallels. And one of the ones that I like is the entire song ‘This Is Me Trying’ then being referenced again in ‘Mirrorball,’ which is, ‘I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try.’”
Before playing “Mirrorball,” she sets the scene she envisioned while she was writing it: “I just saw, you know, lonely disco ball, twinkly lights, neon signs, people drinking beer by the bar, a couple of stragglers on the dance floor. Just sort of a sad moonlit lonely experience, in the middle of a town that you’ve never been.” (Never been? Hell, some of us call it home.) But Taylor’s performance gets at the awful suspended yearning at the heart of the song. “I wrote this song right after I found out all my shows were cancelled, and I’m like, ‘I’m still on that tightrope, I’m still trying everything to get you laughing at me.’” If you’ll forgive the Gen X reference, she evokes the way Paul Westerberg sings about the same malaise in the Replacements’ “Swingin Party,” which until now was the best song about a mirrorball.
For all the characters and settings on Folklore, she still makes these sound like her most introspective songs, because all these folks are different facets of her emotional mirrorball. And they all have a different light to shine. They come across even more vividly in the Long Pond Studio Sessions. In the plaid-shirt hours she spent in this cabin, she goes places musically she’s never explored before. On a Thanksgiving weekend where most of us will be too far away from the ones we love the best, this is a gift to be grateful for.
LIVE REVIEWS
If only we could hear Norma Desmond belt out, “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend, that little tart Betty Schaefer, was hot like me?”
That moment doesn’t come during Nicole Scherzinger’s latest series of performances, which made an entertaining stop Thursday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. The evening felt like two shows in one, musical theater tunes filled most of the night, while the familiar Pussycat Dolls hits dominated the final stretch.
Even so, the mix didn’t feel disjointed. When Scherzinger performed two powerhouse numbers from Sunset Blvd., the stage production that reignited her career, it was clear that her Norma Desmond is far from a tragic relic. The reimagined version she starred in on Broadway and the West End turned Norma into a glamorous, self-aware woman who still knows how to command attention. And it worked.
There’s still a sense of longing among Los Angeles theater fans who never got to see her Sunset run live. Many did make the trip east to witness her Tony-winning turn in late 2024 and early 2025. “You were everything in Sunset!” someone shouted from the audience, a perfect comment for a diva’s big night. The crowd seemed split between those who had already experienced her Broadway performance and those finally getting the chance to see what the buzz was about.
When the Sunset section arrived midway through the concert’s second act, “the show that got me here today,” as she told the audience, With One Look served as the warm-up. The real showstopper was As If We Never Said Goodbye, a moment that recalled Barbra Streisand’s grand interpretation of the same Andrew Lloyd Webber song. As she sang, you could feel the audience itching to leap to their feet, holding their breath until the final note before erupting into applause.
Not long after that peak, Scherzinger swapped elegance for attitude, segueing into the Pussycat Dolls’ Buttons while revealing a sleek, button-free catsuit. Though she now leans toward her stage-actor era, she clearly hasn’t lost her pop-star spark, gliding through familiar choreography with the same energy that once filled arenas.
Nicole Scherzinger at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Oct. 30, 2025.Timothy Norris/Los Angeles Philharmonic
This wasn’t part of a full tour but rather the finale of a three-date run at legendary venues, Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall, and finally Disney Hall, just one day after being honored at Variety’s Power of Women L.A. event. You can easily imagine her taking this format on the road or setting up a residency. Whether audiences come for the Dolls material or her Broadway ballads, she’d probably win them all over by the end.
The concert opened with an unmistakable statement of intent as she tackled Don’t Rain on My Parade. For someone relatively new to the musical theater spotlight, it was a bold move, practically stepping onto Streisand’s territory. Her performance was strong, though traditional, and from there she loosened up with a sultry take on I Put a Spell on You. She followed it with Diamonds Are Forever, a perfect nod to the greatest Bond theme ever recorded. While Shirley Bassey remains unmatched, Scherzinger handled it impressively, and certainly more convincingly than Doja Cat’s recent Oscar misfire.
The mood shifted when she introduced her first recognizable hit, playfully leading in with, “Y’all look so good, I think I might ‘stickwitu’ forever. That reminds me of a song…” It was a brief nostalgic detour before returning to theater classics. A medley of Sondheim’s Losing My Mind and Not a Day Goes By hinted at the emotional terrain that would define the Sunset segment later on.
For her pre-intermission closer, Scherzinger delivered Maybe This Time from Cabaret, the ultimate anthem for underdogs. While she might not fit today’s trend of casting fragile waifs in the role, her confident, powerhouse take recalled the days when performers aimed for sheer vocal impact. At the end, she injected a touch of humor by crouching near her side table, seemingly searching for something, before triumphantly raising her Tony and Olivier Awards, declaring, “Maybe this time, I’ll win!” She affectionately introduced them as “Laurence and Antoinette.”
Intermission thoughts: You either adore this kind of showbiz extravagance or you don’t. The patter, the bravado, the storytelling, it’s all part of an old-school charm that’s rare these days. Scherzinger feels born for this space between pop stardom and theater royalty. She’s as confident delivering quips between songs as she is nailing coloratura runs. If this marks the beginning of her next era, one that leads to her singing I’m Still Here two decades from now, she’s on the right path.
“The ladies are looking absolutely divine,” she told the crowd, before adding, “A lot of hot men in the house tonight.” She knows how to work a room, whether it’s the posh halls of Carnegie or the lively energy of Royal Albert. “Looks like all the WeHos showed up,” she joked, drawing thunderous laughter.
Her humor stayed sharp throughout. Speaking about her mixed background, she said, “I’m Hawaiian, Filipino, Spanish, Chinese, Polish… Irish 2%… and I’ve also got some English in me. His name is Thom.” The crowd laughed as she gestured toward her fiancé, Thom Evans. Later, she introduced her only original song of the night, Bullshit, explaining, “This is my idea of a love song. It’s about waiting for that special someone to, how do you say, get it together and put a ring on it.” After flashing her engagement ring, she grinned: “Needless to say, he got the message.”
Scherzinger didn’t neglect the audience behind her either. “You’ve got the best seats in the house!” she told the upper balconies early on, then later joked about forgetting they were there. “Oh great, you guys are here; I’d forgotten. Give it up for my surprise party back there.” She grew emotional recalling her connection to Prince, calling him “a big part of who I am — my mentor, my big brother.” Turning away for a moment, she dabbed her eyes and laughed, “Thank God for these tissues.”
Her rendition of Purple Rain honored that bond beautifully. For the crowd’s LGBTQ+ contingent, she offered a powerful take on I Am What I Am, the Jerry Herman anthem from La Cage aux Folles. To please the musical theater purists, she opened her final act with the cheeky Show Off from The Drowsy Chaperone, fully embracing its playful spirit.
Appearing in what looked like a stylish dressing gown, she sipped tea and quipped, “Let me put this down before I spill too much,” before slipping into a more revealing look as the show built toward its sultry finale.
The closing Pussycat Dolls medley found her dancing in black lace and heels, towering in presence and energy. It was pure showgirl glamour, the kind of spectacle that could anchor a Vegas residency without question.
But what lingered most for the Disney Hall audience was that breathtaking Sunset Blvd. sequence, where Scherzinger’s Norma Desmond shimmered once again, this time without the Broadway cameras or heavy dramatics. Instead, she delivered something softer, warmer, and irresistibly magnetic. Norma didn’t have to be a villain that night, because from this dazzling performance, it was already clear that Nicole Scherzinger herself is the real showstopper.
Setlist for Nicole Scherzinger at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Oct. 30, 2025:
Don’t Rain on My Parade
I Put a Spell on You
Diamonds Are Forever
Stickwitu
You Raise Me Up/Reflection
Losing My Mind/Not a Day Goes By
Maybe This Time
Set 2:
I Am What I Am
Bullshit
With One Look
As If We Never Said Goodbye
Purple Rain
Set 3:
Show Off
Buttons
When I Grow Up
Don’t Cha
Don’t Hold Your Breath
