It appears there’s an invisible string that ties megastar Taylor Swift to the little red dot. The Grammy Award-winning singer kicked off the first of six sold-out concerts for the Singapore leg of The Eras Tour on Saturday (Mar 2).
If you were there or had read reviews of the first night's show, you would know that after she sang Marjorie during her Evermore era, she related the story of her mother Andrea growing up in Singapore together with Swift's grandmother, the titular Marjorie.
Widely considered to be one of her more poignant tracks, Marjorie is a tribute to Swift's late maternal grandmother, opera singer Marjorie Finlay, who died in 2003. Besides featuring bits of advice Finlay gave to Swift, the song also incorporates samples of Finlay's operatic vocals.
Swift said: “I’ve been hearing about Singapore all my life. To get to come here and play a show this big… it means the world.”
“A lot of the time when we came here on tour, my mum would take me and drive me past her old house and where she used to go to school…"
More information has since been unearthed about Swift's Singapore connection.
Marjorie Finlay had moved to Singapore with her husband Robert for his work in an engineering company, according to a 2010 Straits Times story.
The news outlet also reported that according to an article of theirs that ran in 1968, Finlay was chosen to play the soprano lead in the production of The Bartered Bride at the Victoria Theatre over five nights.
The pair later enrolled their daughter (and Swift's mum) Andrea Finlay – now Andrea Swift – at the Singapore American School, where she studied at the King’s Road campus between 1968 and 1969.
Meanwhile, local writer Koh Buck Song took to Facebook to share what he managed to dig up.
In his post from Mar 3, he posted scenes from the Marjorie music video, which is made up of old footage, that he said might have been filmed in Singapore during the 1960s.
In the clip, Marjorie Finlay is seen wearing a yellow dress as she walks out of what seems like a British colonial bungalow towards a Ford car with the license plate SM8860.
(Photo: YouTube/@TaylorSwift)
He wrote: “The architecture of the bungalow in the scene is distinctive of colonial bungalows in Singapore, which are present today in Tanglin, Sembawang or Ridout Road. The car porch and grass slopes are also unmistakably Singapore-like."
(Photo: YouTube/@TaylorSwift)
As Swift continues to perform four more shows in Singapore, fans can only wonder if she'll share more stories of her connections to the Lion City.
Continue reading...
If you were there or had read reviews of the first night's show, you would know that after she sang Marjorie during her Evermore era, she related the story of her mother Andrea growing up in Singapore together with Swift's grandmother, the titular Marjorie.
Widely considered to be one of her more poignant tracks, Marjorie is a tribute to Swift's late maternal grandmother, opera singer Marjorie Finlay, who died in 2003. Besides featuring bits of advice Finlay gave to Swift, the song also incorporates samples of Finlay's operatic vocals.
Swift said: “I’ve been hearing about Singapore all my life. To get to come here and play a show this big… it means the world.”
“A lot of the time when we came here on tour, my mum would take me and drive me past her old house and where she used to go to school…"
More information has since been unearthed about Swift's Singapore connection.
Marjorie Finlay had moved to Singapore with her husband Robert for his work in an engineering company, according to a 2010 Straits Times story.
The news outlet also reported that according to an article of theirs that ran in 1968, Finlay was chosen to play the soprano lead in the production of The Bartered Bride at the Victoria Theatre over five nights.
The pair later enrolled their daughter (and Swift's mum) Andrea Finlay – now Andrea Swift – at the Singapore American School, where she studied at the King’s Road campus between 1968 and 1969.
Meanwhile, local writer Koh Buck Song took to Facebook to share what he managed to dig up.
In his post from Mar 3, he posted scenes from the Marjorie music video, which is made up of old footage, that he said might have been filmed in Singapore during the 1960s.
In the clip, Marjorie Finlay is seen wearing a yellow dress as she walks out of what seems like a British colonial bungalow towards a Ford car with the license plate SM8860.
(Photo: YouTube/@TaylorSwift)
He wrote: “The architecture of the bungalow in the scene is distinctive of colonial bungalows in Singapore, which are present today in Tanglin, Sembawang or Ridout Road. The car porch and grass slopes are also unmistakably Singapore-like."
(Photo: YouTube/@TaylorSwift)
As Swift continues to perform four more shows in Singapore, fans can only wonder if she'll share more stories of her connections to the Lion City.
Continue reading...