Seth Meyers is applauding Taylor Swift for writing her own Saturday Night Live monologue when she hosted the comedy sketch show in 2009.
During his appearance on Monday’s episode of SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show, the Late Night host shared that most hosts have SNL staff write their monologues, but Swift already had something in mind.
“It really speaks to what a force of nature she is and the depths of her talent,” Meyers said. “Here’s a 19-year-old who nobody is really helping out; nobody gave her a manual of how to do that show. And yet, she came to us and said, ‘I wrote a song for the opening monologue.’ So we brought Taylor into Lorne’s [Michael, series creator] office, and she sings this song which is not only a beautiful song by a beautiful singer, it’s a perfect SNL monologue. Fully formed.”
The song she performed with her acoustic guitar, typically referred to as “Monologue Song (La La La),” mentioned headlines at the time involving Swift, including relationships, breakups and the infamous Kanye West VMAs incident.
“To this day, I’ve never had a moment like that where someone brings you a fully gift-wrapped present and it’s exactly what you need it to be,” Meyers added. “When she finished I should’ve said, ‘Now Taylor, just for you, I want to look at you and read what we had written for you just so you know how much fucking worse it was. Not only is your song great, but you cannot even begin to imagine how shitty what we were doing for you is compared to how great what you did for yourself is.’”
During Meyers’ time at SNL, he worked as a cast member and a writer for 12 and a half seasons before leaving in 2014. He now hosts NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers, but he did return to the comedy show in 2018 to host.
