Yungblud Mashes Up Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne, and Swift Highly Approves
Probably no one had thought that Taylor Swift’s recent “Cardigan” and Avril Lavigne’s “I’m With You” were similar enough to belong together in a medley before Yungblud did, but upon hearing his strings-lade mashup, the “Folklore” artist was swift with her approval.
Yungblud blended the two songs in a segment filmed for BBC Radio 1’s annual Live Lounge Month, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and joined by a cellist and two violin players.
Retweeting Yungblud’s posting of the performance, Swift wrote, “WELL this took my breath away and I’m honored to hear Cardigan intertwined with the wonderful @AvrilLavigne’s masterpiece ‘I’m with you’. Bravo and thanks @yungblud!!”
Interestingly, Yungblud didn’t stick terribly close to the melody of either hit, transposing “Cardigan” to a more cheerful key, and ditching some of the minor chords from Lavigne’s song as well, coming up with an altogether more cheerful-sounding juxtaposition of the two otherwise more bittersweet songs.
Yungblud referred to the two singers as “my favourite girls” in his original tweet, writing, “CARDIGAN x IM WITH YOU … covered my favourite girls @taylorswift13 n @AvrilLavigne for the @BBCR1 live lounge! go watch full vid on youtube and run up the coms with ‘[hearts]s’ show em you’re bhc! #yungbludscardigan.”
Swift has been a visitor to the Live Lounge herself before for some surprising covers, like Phil Collins’ “Can’t Stop Loving You” last year.
The native Brit also performed a song of his own, “Strawberry Lipstick.” “Playing the Live Lounge was always a massive dream of mine – I used to have the CDs as a kid,” he vowed ahead of the appearance. “To do it last year was so insane, but this time I have eight months of repressed energy and a whole lot of fire to get out. So bring your petrol!”
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