Taylor Swift sneaks in Singlish for first night of Eras Tour concert in Singapore, recounts family ties to the country and driving past mum’s old home

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Ahh, Singlish. The unofficial national language of Singapore that we love to hate, but seeing it get international recognition drives us wild. Especially when the recognition comes from global megastar Taylor Swift.

The singer started her Eras Tour concert on Saturday (2 March) in Singapore – the only stop in Southeast Asia – and a spot of Singlish made its way into her concert.

To manage expectations, it’s not Swift herself who says it.

In the bridge of her song We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, she sings “Like, we are never getting back together”, followed by her dancer Kameron Saunders adding “Like ever”.

For Singapore, though, an unexpected surprise came when Saunders said “No lah” causing the 60,000-strong crowd to erupt in screams and cheers.

Saunders’ line has been localised for the Tokyo and Australia leg of the tour as well. In the first night for Tokyo, he said arienai (impossible in Japanese). For one of the Australia concerts, he said “no” with an Aussie accent.

His line seems to change with different nights so we’ll have to see what surprises Mother has in store for the rest of the Singapore concerts.

Family ties to Singapore
During the Evermore era of her concert, Swift spoke briefly of her connection to Singapore before performing Champagne Problems. She talked about the song Marjorie, which she had just performed, and shared that it was about her grandmother – or her “mum’s mum” as she described it.

Swift was moved that the audience had turned on the flashlight on their phones and put it up while she was performing Marjorie.

Then, she said with a smile, “My mum actually spent a lot of her childhood with her mum, and dad, and sister growing up in Singapore.”

This was something she revealed back in 2016 during an interview with The Straits Times.