Over the weekend, Taylor Swift appeared on The Tonight Show in order to debut her song from her new album, Reputation. The song is called ‘New Year’s Day and it is about a search for love that will last forever and about saying one final farewell to all the past struggles.
But sadly, the show was the first one back since the death of Jimmy Fallon’s mother, Gloria.
It was at the beginning of the show that Jimmy paid an emotional tribute to his mother.
In the video, Jimmy could be seen seated behind his desk talking about his mother. ‘When we were little, my mom would walk us to the store and we would hold hands.’
‘And she would squeeze my hand three times and say ‘I love you.’ Last week I was in the hospital and I grabbed her hand and squeezed. ‘I love you.’ I just knew we were in trouble.’
And the song that Taylor was performing had a lot to do with that particular story. Some of the lyrics in that song include: ‘you squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi. I can tell that it’s gonna be a long road.’
But that’s not all, after the show, Mike DiCenzo, who is a writer and producer on the show decided to tell the world the backstory to the touching performance.
He tweeted: ‘it was a really tough day for our whole staff. A lot of us knew his mom Gloria, and she was the best. The best. She loved the show, she loved all of us, and most of all, she loved Jimmy.’
‘First, a quick word about Taylor Swift. She was not scheduled to do our show today. But we wanted something special for this first show back, so we asked her on a complete whim since she had been in town doing SNL. She said yes with zero hesitation.’
He went on to say that no one had heard Jimmy’s story before so when those lyrics were sung, almost everyone (including the audience) started to tear up.
‘I could see Jimmy silhouetted at his desk dabbing his eyes with a tissue. We all lost it. It was a beautiful coincidence in a beautiful performance. That hug between Jimmy and Taylor after the song was 100% real emotion. Whatever you think of Taylor, she did something beautiful for Jimmy and our show today, and we’re forever grateful.’
