Nine-time ACM Award-winner Taylor Swift to perform her country radio single “Betty” at the 2020 ACM Awards. The performance marks Swift’s first performance in seven years, she will be performing the song from the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville.
“Betty” is Swift first country single since the release of her song “New Year’s Day” in 2017, a track from her album reputation.
Swift’s “Betty” is a track from her record-breaking eighth studio album, Folklore, which has spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart, tying her with Whitney Houston for the most cumulative weeks atop the chart by a woman in history.
“So, the song ‘betty’ is about a 17-year-old named James learning to apologize, because James has lost the love of his life basically and doesn’t understand how to get it back,” Swift explained of the track. “I think we all have these situations in our lives where we learn to really, really give a heartfelt apology for the first time. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody really messes up sometimes, and this is a song that I wrote from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy. And I always loved that in music you can kind of slip into different identities and you can sing from other people’s perspectives. So, that’s what I did with this one. I named all the characters in this story after my friends’ kids, and I hope you like it.”
Other performances on the ACM Awards include Kane Brown, Kelsea Ballerini, Gabby Barrett, Maren Morris, Old Dominion, Thomas Rhett, Jon Pardi, Riley Green, Tenille Townes, Jimmie Allen, Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, Tim McGraw, Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Dan+Shay, Florida Georgia Line, Mickey Guyton, Carrie Underwood, Morgan Wallen, Trisha Yearwood, Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton.
The 55th Annual ACM Awards will air live from three iconic country music venues including Grand Ole Opry House, Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium and The Bluebird Cafe at 8 p.m. EST on CBS Television Network, and will stream live and on-demand on CBS All Access. The show is hosted by the reigning ACM Entertainer of the Year and 15-time ACM Award-winner, Keith Urban.
The ACM Awards were originally scheduled to broadcast live from Las Vegas at MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 5 but due to the ongoing pandemic, the Academy Of Country Music decided to postpone the award ceremony until September 16.
