Sabrina Carpenter wants to know if NPR is hiring! The pop star packed her sultry, country-tinged Tiny Desk performance Friday with sweet storytimes of the songs on Short ‘n Sweet as she joked about the radio station’s “working environment.”
“NPR, I’ve been watching this show… everyone says this, whatever. You guys are great! You guys know you’re great!” joked Carpenter, backed by a full band and string ensemble that could barely fit in the minuscule corner cubicle.
Carpenter opened her show with “Taste,” with Carpenter showing off her hair in her classic blond curls while wearing a sky blue dress and matching lace stockings.
“When I first started, it was kind of in a room like this: Very dry walls and there’s no reverb like when there’s headphones in the studio, but there’s something so real about it. It’s so special,” Carpenter said.
The pop star then shared a sweet story about how she came to know as “explicitly horny” thanks to her silly, innuendo-filled “Nonsense” outros from her last tour. (Rolling Stone ranked the best ones.) Carpenter explained that the outros happened as. a “beautiful, happy accident” and it inspired her following LP. “I had this limitless feeling when I started writing Short n’ Sweet,” she said.
Carpenter then introduced “Bed Chem” by sharing a story about sharing a king bed with her best friend Paloma, and that the two of them fell asleep and woke up at the same time, naturally. “I was like, ‘We have really good bed chem,’ so I saved it as a title. Then I met a guy and we had really good bed chem… She doesn’t make money on it so I give her a lot of credit,” Carpenter joked.
Carpenter continued her performance with “Please Please Please” and a snippet of “Slim Pickins” as she showed off a Dolly Parton-esque country twang. “How do you like this office? Is it a nice working environment? This seems so fun. I was literally just like, ‘I wanna work here!” Are you looking for anyone?” Carpenter joked.
She then played her Grammy-nominated song “Espresso” and explained the origins of her infamous “Juno” line. “The day I wrote this song it came from a joke with a couple of friends… ‘Make you wanna make me Juno.’ I was like, ‘It’s a funny way to be like ‘Knock me up please.’ I’m so sorry, by the way,” Carpenter laughed before turning to her band, apologizing for her explicit storytelling. “I’ve been performing it on tour and it’s been really fun… I don’t have much space here but I hope you can picture it!”
Carpenter is concluding a star-making 2024 after the success of “Espresso” and Short ‘n Sweet. The singer is up for six Grammy awards next year, including Album, Record, and Song of the Year. She’s also nominated for Best New Artist.