Taylor Swift Refused to Go With Her Co-Writer’s Vision for ‘Welcome to New York’
Taylor Swift’s “Welcome to New York” is a collaboration with a rock star. Swift didn’t stick with her collaborator’s vision for the song. Subsequently, he discussed why this was the case.
Why Taylor Swift’s ‘Welcome to New York’ sounds like 1980s music
Ryan Tedder is the lead singer of OneRepublic, which is known for hits like “Apologize,” “Counting Stars,” and “Good Life.” He also wrote songs for other artists, such as Lil Nas X’s “Thats What I Want,” Adele’s “Turning Tables,” and Kelly Clarkson’s “Already Gone.”
During a 2020 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Tedder said he expected to write something from scratch with Swift. “Then she calls me and says, ‘Is it cool if I already have an idea?'” he recalled. “I said, ‘Sure.’
“She said, ‘I have this song, I’m obsessed with New York and I just moved there, I want to write an ode to New York because no one’s done it in a long time,'” he continued. “And then she sent me a voice memo.”
Swift drew from a specific era of music for “Welcome to New York.” “She’s like, ‘I want it to sound like the 1980s,'” he recalled. “So the next day I brought in a Juno-106, which is a very 1980s keyboard, and I literally programmed that entire song right in front of her. It was very much on the fly, and that song was done in about three hours. And I did the rest of the production I think later that week.”
Taylor Swift didn’t go with the version of the song that Ryan Tedder liked best
Tedder had his own vision for the song that did not come to fruition. “I was in Switzerland on a tour bus, and I did four versions of ‘Welcome to New York,’ one of which I liked personally more, but the thing about artists is they become very obsessed with the demo,” he said.
Swift made “Welcome to New York” the first song from her popular album 1989. According to a 2014 article from The Hollywood Reporter, Swift made this decision because New York City had been an important place in the current epoch of her life. She viewed the Big Apple “as a place of endless potential and possibilities,” and she wanted “Welcome to New York” to reflect that. Tedder told Entertainment Weekly he was happy when the tune later appeared in the movie The Secret Life of Pets, which his children loved.
How ‘Welcome to New York’ and ‘1989’ performed in the United States
“Welcome to New York” was, at best, a modest hit for Swift. It reached No. 48 on the Billboard Hot 100, staying on the chart for two weeks. It didn’t achieve the ubiquity of other New York City anthems like Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York,” Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” or Hall & Oates’ “Maneater.”
However, 1989 was a juggernaut. It topped the Billboard 200 for 11 weeks, staying on the chart for 430 weeks in total. By contrast, Swift’s second longest-charting album, Taylor Swift, merely spent 275 weeks on the chart.
“Welcome to New York” is a great album track even if it’s not Tedder’s vision.
