Taylor Swift's Midnights co-writers have been revealed! The album's credits list includes quite a few familiar names and one highly recognizable pseudonym.
In addition to Swift's frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff, who is credited on 11 of the LP's 13 tracks, Zoe Kravitz is also named as a co-writer on "Lavender Haze" and "Karma." Swift's boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, is also listed under his familiar songwriting pen name, William Bowery, on the song "Sweet Nothing."
Alwyn previously contributed to Swift's 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore on the tracks "Exile," "Betty," "Champagne Problems," "Coney Island" and "Evermore." Alwyn's secret alias was eventually confirmed by Swift herself in her Disney+ special, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions.
"I just heard Joe singing the entire, fully formed chorus of 'Betty' from another room. And I just was like, 'Hello!' It was a step that we would never have taken, because why would we have ever written a song together? This was the first time we had a conversation where I came in and I was like, 'Hey, this could be really weird and we could hate this, so could we just, because we're in quarantine and there's nothing else going on, could we just try to see what it's like if we write this song together?'" she shared at the time.
"Joe plays piano beautifully and he's always just playing and making things up and kind of creating things," she added. "And 'Exile' was crazy because Joe had written that entire piano part ... He was singing the Bon Iver part, the 'I can see you standing honey, with his arms around your body, laughing but the joke's not funny at all.' He was just singing it. And I was entranced and asked if we could keep writing that one."
For her next album, Swift has already addressed how her six-year relationship with Alwyn influenced the album's opening track, "Lavender Haze" -- which we now know also includes a Kravitz co-write!
"I happened upon the phrase 'Lavender Haze' when I was watching Mad Men and I looked it up because I thought it sounded cool, and it turns out that it was a common phrase that was used in the '50s where they would just describe being in love," she explained in a recent social media video. "Like, If you were in the 'Lavender Haze,' that meant you were in that all-encompassing love glow, and I thought that was really beautiful."
She continued, "And I guess theoretically when you're in the 'Lavender Haze,' you'll do anything to stay there and not let people bring you down off of that cloud. And I think a lot of people have to deal with this now -- not just, like, quote-unquote public figures -- because we live in the era of social media and if the world finds out that you're in love with somebody, they're gonna weigh in on it."
"My relationship for six years, we've had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff, and we just ignore it," she said of Alwyn. "And so this song is sort of about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff. I hope you guys like it."
Midnights is out on Oct. 21.
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