How a Rock Star Helped Taylor Swift Write ‘Cardigan’
Taylor Swift‘s “Cardigan” is one of the most interesting No. 1 hits to come out in the past few years. While she’s a musical genius, Swift did not create the tune on her own. She revealed how the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic inspired her to work with a rock star. The “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” singer explained why “Cardigan” was different from some of her earlier music.
Taylor Swift’s ‘Cardigan’ was partially the result of self care
Swift has collaborated with numerous notable artists, including Kendrick Lamar, Ed Sheeran, Rihanna, Calvin Harris, Shawn Mendes, and others. Several songs from her album Folklore were co-written by the rock star Aaron Dessner from the band The National. During a 2020 interview with Rolling Stone, Swift said she was a fan of The National. She discussed how she and Dessner created her song “Cardigan.”
“It turned out he had been writing instrumental tracks to keep from absolutely going crazy during the pandemic as well, so he sends me this file of probably 30 instrumentals, and the first one I opened ended up being a song called ‘Cardigan,’ and it really happened rapid-fire like that,” she said. “He’d send me a track; he’d make new tracks, add to the folder; I would write the entire top line for a song, and he wouldn’t know what the song would be about, what it was going to be called, where I was going to put the chorus.”
Taylor Swift threw out the rule book for ‘Folklore’
Swift discussed how these collaborations led to an album. “I had originally thought, ‘Maybe I’ll make an album in the next year, and put it out in January or something,’ but it ended up being done and we put it out in July,” she recalled. “And I just thought there are no rules anymore, because I used to put all these parameters on myself.”
The “I Knew You Were Trouble” singer was generally concerned about whether her songs were radio-friendly. She decided to throw caution to the wind. Folklore was the result.
How ‘Cardigan’ impacted the world
“Cardigan” became huge hit. The track topped the Billboard Hot 100 for a week, staying on the chart for 14 weeks. The success of “Cardigan” shows that Swift knows how to write a pop song even when she’s ignoring all of the rules.
The tune appeared on the album Folklore. That record was No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for eight of its total 190 weeks on the chart. Folklore became one of the most acclaimed albums of Swift’s career because she showed her versatility by making an indie folk album. Folklore might be the biggest and most widely praised folk album since Jewel’s Pieces of You or even Bob Dylan’s heyday in the 1960s.
“Cardigan” inspired many covers. Perhaps the most famous is a rendition by the rock star Yungblud. The fact that Yungblud, a singer who is so different from Swift, decided to put his own spin on the song shows that her songwriting is respected by artists across genres.
“Cardigan” is a great song and it’s the result of the synergy between Swift and Dessner.
