Jimmy Fallon was so inspired by Taylor Swift’s new Disney+ special, “folklore: the long pond studio sessions,” that he decided to write his own album in quarantine and force The Roots and Chris Martin to join him for “fallonlore: the 30 rock sessions,” a behind-the-scenes doc that won’t be coming to any streaming service any time soon.
“OK, so it’s 8:30 in the morning. Why am I awake?” Fallon said to the camera during Tuesday’s “Tonight Show” spoof of the “Cardigan” singer’s recently launched doc revealing the stories behind the tracks on her hit album “folklore.” “I sort of unexpectedly started writing an album and I just felt really inspired and I went with it. And I recorded an entire album with The Roots remotely.”
We then see Black Thought and Questlove sitting around outside 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where Fallon’s show tapes, being forced to converse with him about the album they were forced to record with him, which includes songs like “i peed my pants in an Applebee’s,” “song about milk,” and “sourdough heart.”
Fallon’s musings about where he got the ideas for his quarantine-inspired tracks are intercut with scenes of the group performing them together in order, just as Swift did with Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon for “folklore: the long pond sessions,” which launched last week on Disney+.
The “Tonight Show” host is then joined remotely by Coldplay’s Chris Martin for a duet of “fuzzy wuzzy.” It’s definitely no “exile.”
Then it’s time for more reminiscing, which leads to a shocking reveal.
“I’m excited for this documentary to come out,” Black Thought says to Fallon. “What documentary?” Jimmy responds.
When Questlove asks if what they’re doing is going to stream on Disney+ like Swift’s intimate special, he says, “Oh no, Disney+ didn’t want it. Neither did Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Peacock…”
“Peacock said no??” Black Thought says, poking fun at “Tonight Show” producer NBCUniversal’s new streaming service.
“I know! Not great. But look it’s fine, we’re not Taylor. She’s a musical genius. We can’t do what she did. But we can still be proud. We made something beautiful. We made something real and honest and from the heart.”
They made something, yes.
Watch the full “fallonlore” segment via the video above.