A graduating class of a school in Bacolod City gained buzz for performing Taylor Swift’s “Long Live” as their graduation song.
The University of St. La Salle in Bacolod City on June 11 posted a video that showed the graduating students’ heartfelt rendition of “Long Live” during their graduation ceremony.
The De La Salle Bacolod Instructional Media Center recorded their performance on video. It was shared on USLS’s Facebook account.
“Relive the heartfelt moment when the Class of 2023 sang their graduation song, ‘Long Live’ by Taylor Swift, during the 66th Graduation Rites,” the post reads.
The 66th commencement exercises was held on June 5 at the St. La Salle Coliseum inside the campus.
In the five-minute video, the members of the graduating class performed a simple and seamless choreography to a song cover of the “Speak Now” track.
Some students could also be seen in front of them and on stage. They guided the class to the steps for a clean and synchronized performance.
During the chorus, the students could be heard singing their hearts out to the lyrics that seemed to resonate with them.
The video has since earned 116,000 views, 8,700 reactions and 134 comments on Facebook as of writing.
It also caught the attention of Taylor’s fans, collectively called Swifties, on social media.
Facebook fan page Swifters 2.0 shared a TikTok footage showing another angle of the USLS’s graduation presentation.
This video garnered more than 900,000 views on the platform.
Another fan account on Twitter @TheSwiftSociety also shared another angle of their performance. It showed the harmony of the students as they sing in high spirits.
This tweet earned over 805,000 views on the platform.
📲| University of St. La Salle used “Long Live” as their graduation song 🎓pic.twitter.com/q8L3Ar7Vzd
— The Swift Society (@TheSwiftSociety) June 6, 2023
Thousands of Taylor’s fans praised the students for their rendition of “Long Live.” They also congratulated them on their graduation.
This was the second time that students of USLS used this song for their graduation.
Prior to this, senior high students at the university also sang and danced to the track as their graduation song in 2022.
About ‘Long Live’
“Long Live” is one of the 14 songs from Taylor’s “Speak Now” album and is also included in its deluxe package. Both albums were released in 2010.
Despite not being a title track and being released as a single, the five-minute song became a favorite of Swifites because of its message of triumph against adversity and the strong bond formed out of it.
On her website, which was quoted by Genius.com, Taylor explained that she wrote the song as a tribute to her fans, her producer and all the people who helped her career.
“This song is about my band, and my producer, and all the people who have helped us build this brick by brick. The fans, the people whom I feel that we are all in this together, this song talks about the triumphant moments that we’ve had in the last two years,” she was quoted on the website as saying.
Taylor will be releasing her long-awaited “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” on July 9.
The multi-awarded artist is currently holding her “Eras Tour,” which is her first world tour since her “Reputation Stadium Tour” in 2018.