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Taylor Swift Songs Inspire New Hanukkah Track From Jewish Acappella Group Six13
by Shiryn Ghermezian
Taylor Swift attends a premiere for Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in Los Angeles, California, US, Oct. 11, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
Six13, an acappella group that makes Jewish-themed parodies of popular songs, released a Taylor Swift-inspired Hanukkah medley this year ahead of the Jewish holiday beginning Thursday night.
The song is titled Era-lution of Taylor Swift (Chanukah’s version), which is a nod to Swift’s Eras Tour — her ongoing concert tour that takes fans through the different musical eras of her almost two decade-long career. The tour is the second highest-grossing musical tour of all time.
Six13’s new song pulls music from 14 of Swift’s hit songs, including Love Story, I Knew You Were Trouble, Bad Blood, Shake It Off, Blank Space, and Anti-Hero. In their original lyrics, the six-man group sings about the story of Hanukkah, eating latkes, spinning a dreidel, and Jewish pride.
“We’ll never back down/We’re Jewish and proud/And I’m just like…/We’ll never be stopped/So like it or not, we’re sticking around,” Six13 sings to the tune of Swift’s song You Need to Calm Down. Later on, to the tune of Look What You Made Me Do, they sing: “I’m proud to be a Jew/Our pride is strong and true/I’m so proud to be a Jew.”
Swift dominated the pop culture arena in 2023. She was the most streamed artist in the world on Spotify with more than 26.1 billion streams, and the 33-year-old in July became the first female artist to have four albums on Billboard’s top 10 list at the same time.
Her Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), a re-recording of her third album Speak Now, became her 12th album to top the Billboard 200 chart, and 1989 (Taylor’s Version), a re-recording of her fifth album 1989, became her sixth album to sell over 1 million copies in its first week. She was also named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2023 and a movie version of her Eras Tour racked up $250 million in ticket sales. Forbes magazine this week also named Swift the world’s fifth most powerful woman.
Past songs released by Six13 include Bohemian Chanukah, a parody of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, Star Wars Chanukah, as well as tributes to Billy Joel songs, West Side Story, and the Disney film Frozen.
Watch the music video for Era-lution of Taylor Swift (Chanukah’s version) below.
