Sabrina Carpenter is about to get another front-row seat on Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour. The Emails I Can’t Send singer is gearing up to re-join Swift on the Latin American leg of the record-breaking outing, so as a kind of warm-up she recorded a super stripped-down version of Taylor’s “I Knew You Were Trouble” for Spotify Singles.
The bouncy Max Martin and Shellback-produced song from Swift’s 2012 Red album gets stripped down to the studs in Carpenter’s hands, with the singer transforming the EDM lite original into a hushed acoustic ballad featuring her breathy vocals floating over pedal steel, subtle drums and atmospheric keyboards.
“And I heard you moved on/ From whispers on the street/ A new notch in your belt/ Is all I’ll ever be,” Carpenter sings achingly before wailing, “And now I see/ Now I see/ Now I see.” The Single batch also features a version of Carpenter’s “Feather,” which appeared on Emails I Can’t Send Fwd, the deluxe edition of her Emails album.
Carpenter will head south with Swift next month when the Eras Tour picks back up with three shows at Estádio Olímpico Nilton Santos in Rio de Janeiro. She will also be the opener when the tour jumps to Australia and Singapore in February and March.
Billboard spoke to Carpenter in August as she was hitting the road with her biggest musical inspiration, and the 24-year-old singer could not say enough about the dream honor. “That is one of my main inspirations ever since I was a little girl, and now to just be able to watch that show every night is going to be so special,” she said after making her Eras Tour debut in Mexico City, where she wowed the crowd with a cover of late Mexican-American superstar Selena Quintanilla’s 1995 hit “Dreaming of You.”
“It’s so funny, I’ve been growing up with her advice in her songs because it’s very much a how-to book on how to survive as a young woman, which is really special,” Carpenter added. “Watching her in and of itself is how you learn. I admire her work ethic and her talent and she’s just so amazing.”
Listen to Carpenter’s “I Knew You Were Trouble” below.
