Taylor Swift has been named one of New York Times' 30 Greatest Songwriters, and in the process sat down with the publication for a new interview.
During the 30-minute talk, Swift revealed that after the massive global success of her second studio album, Fearless, she was already feeling as though she had already lost her way as a songwriter.
“It sounds ridiculous, but at 22 years old, I felt completely washed up,” she admitted. “I felt like maybe the only thing that made me special was that I was this, like, ‘teen phenom’, whatever I was looked at as.”
Feeling a backlash from the success of Fearless led her to write "22" from the 2012 album Red, in which she asks, "How can a person know everything at 18, but nothing at 22?"’
“It really turned the tables on my perception of like, love can be quickly handed to you and then taken away, and it’s this kind of strange thing with fame, and that was the first time I ever grappled with that,” she added. “The entertainment industry love-bombs women."
Swift also took the opportunity to shut down the rumour that she and long-time collaborator Jack Antonoff had a falling out, after he was not involved in her last album, The Life of a Showgirl.
“Jack Antonoff is a collaborator of mine and one of my best friends,” Swift said.
She then explained how their creative process works, and how it led to something they call the "rant bridge," a songwriting device that helped them score a #1 hit with "Cruel Summer."
“We established this thing that we love to do, and we call it the rant bridge,” she continued. “It’s basically like stream of consciousness, endless pouring-out of emotion, intrusive thoughts, blended with metaphor, with discussion, with shouting. You want this rant bridge to feel the most intense of what that feeling is that you’re trying to establish over the course of the song, and you want it to be kind of a crescendo.”
Yesterday (April 28), Antonoff himself denied there being any rift in their friendship/partnership during an appearance on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM show.
“I only feel grateful for the work that has happened,” Antonoff said about their work together “Maybe it’s only because I write my own songs and sing them, but I understand that need to have different collaborators and jump around.”
He too discussed the rant bridge, adding, “You spend a whole song — verse and chorus — you know, being super poetic and dancing around something … and then you get to this bridge, and you just crash the f**k out. At that point you’ve earned it, so it’s almost like you can be so free. It’s something that I feel like is one of our very special things … We kind of egg each other on.”
Watch the full New York Times interview with Taylor Swift here.