Taylor Swift Revealed The Breakup That Inspired "Death By A Thousand Cuts"

Taylor Swift sells out pretty much every stadium she books and her days of playing small-scale intimate shows are over, seeing as she has a global fanbase to appease. However, Swifties everywhere got the ultimate treat when Tay played a once-in-a-lifetime, stripped-down set to a super tiny crowd at NPR's studios. Appropriately called the Tiny Desk concert series, Swift joined a long list of artists to hit the miniature stage and get gritty with her music. With no band and no backup dancers, Tay served up some true music magic, playing hits off her most recent album, Lover. For those who weren't lucky enough to attend Taylor Swift's Tiny Desk concert, don't worry... there's a video of the entire thing.

The best part of Swift's live shows is that she always shares a few stories or anecdotes in between songs. Her Tiny Desk show was no different and she let fans in on some super intimate details about the new record. As it turns out, the superstar singer has fears and insecurities just like the rest of us, and made a major confession. Apparently, Swift worried that once she found real love, she would lose her ability to pen breakup tracks.

Now, anyone that has listened to Lover knows that is simply not true. Despite being the picture of happiness with Joe Alwyn, Swift can still conjure up some heart-wrenching lyrics. "Death By A Thousand Cuts" from Lover is true to its title and will cut right to the heart, and "Cornelia Street" imagines a breakup that hasn't happened yet. (Still sad, TBH).

However, Taylor shared her fears about losing that ability and the moment she knew it would not happen.

"I've gotten a question over and over again that seriously has the potential to deteriorate my mental health," she explained with a laugh. "The question is: What will you ever do if you get happy? Like, what will you write about? Will you just never be able to write a song again?"

"In the interviews, when I would get that question, as a young person, I just kind of would be like well, 'I started out writing songs on stuff I had no idea about.'"

Then, Swift explained that seeing breakups around her and taking inspiration from books and movies helped her get in the breakup songwriting spirit. She revealed that she had several friends experiencing romance woes.

"It's like those breakups where you need to talk to your friend all the time because they need to talk about it all day, every day," she shared. "It all culminated in me waking up one day with all these heartbreak lyrics in my head one day and I was like 'It's still here! Yes!.'"

See? Swift may be head-over-heels in love, but she's still got it!

In addition to playing several new songs, Tay also slipped in her fan-favorite track "All Too Well." You can see the setlist and watch the performance in full below.

Swift also shed light on the process of making the album as a whole. She told the crowd that she "wrote everything on one instrument first" and was pleased about getting the chance to play the songs the way they sounded "when she first wrote them." Now those are some lucky Swifties.