Suki Waterhouse Brings Dazzling Haze of Taylor Swift’s ‘Lover’ to Austin City Limits
Austin City Limits is Suki Waterhouse’s place, and she makes the rules. During the singer and songwriter’s performance at weekend one of Austin City Limits, she tapped into the dazzling haze of Taylor Swift’s Lover with a cover of the 2019 album’s title track. Waterhouse seamlessly integrated “Lover” into her setlist, transitioning into it from Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” in the same smooth vocal tone.
The singer’s renditions of “Fade Into You” and “Lover” formed a medley with one of her own singles, “Brutally.” Waterhouse also performed cuts from her 2022 debut album, I Can’t Let Go. She opened with “Moves” and worked her way through “The Devil I Know,” “On Your Thumb,” “Melrose Meltdown,” and more. Fan favorites “Coolest Place in the World” and “Johanna” also made it onto the setlist.
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“Suki has always seemed like she stepped out of a time machine. Her music is so raw and hopelessly romantic because that’s how she moves through the world,” Swift recently told SSense about Waterhouse. “When we hang out, I often come away wondering how someone can be simultaneously spontaneous and free—and also preternaturally wise.”
She added: “She is the wildest person I know who I would also trust to keep any secret. You’ll be stressed about something trivial, she’ll just look at you, cigarette in hand, and say ‘Babe, you know none of this actually matters.’ And she’ll be exactly right.”
Earlier this year, Waterhouse spoke to Rolling Stone about the evolution her music underwent as she shifted from modeling to acting to full-time musicianship. “I was really attracted to the life of a musician before I even was telling anybody that I was actually writing,” she explained, adding: “For my album, I remember thinking that I wanted the sound … I kind of think about it in movie terms. What would Thelma and Louise be listening to if they were driving off the side of a cliff? The sound kind of came to me from thinking a lot about where I wanted people to listen to my music. The songs are always about having something to externalize and memorialize times in your life that don’t exist anymore.”
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