CINCINNATI — Cincinnati native and The National guitarist Aaron Dessner entered into the world of Taylor Swift during the COVID-19 pandemic, and now he's back helping the world's biggest performer craft what he calls some of her most vulnerable songs on "The Tortured Poets Department."
Swift released the 16-track album, which is her 11th album, at midnight, before dropping another 15 songs at 2 a.m. for "The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology." Throughout the 31 total songs on the double album, Dessner has writing or producing credits on 17 songs.
The album is rumored to be about Swift's past relationships with Brits Joe Alwyn and The 1975 lead singer Matt Healy — there's even a song Dessner worked on called "So Long, London." Swifties are also guessing that one track, "thanK you aIMee," is about Swift's past with Kim Kardashian.
The songs with Dessner's touch include many that beckon back to the introspective, raw sound of Swift's "Folklore," which is the duo's first collaboration together. Some of Dessner's song credits include "So High School," "loml," "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived," "The Prophecy" and "The Manuscript" among many others.
Here's the full list of songs Dessner worked on:
- "So Long, London"
- "But Daddy I Love Him"
- "loml"
- "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived"
- "Clara Bow"
- "The Albatross"
- "Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus"
- "How Did It End?"
- "So High School"
- "I Hate It Here"
- "thanK you aIMee"
- "The Prophecy"
- "Cassandra"
- "Peter"
- "The Bolter"
- "Robin"
- "The Manuscript"
Outside of Dessner, Swift also collaborated with longtime friend and producer Jack Antonoff. The album also contains features from Post Malone on "Fortnight" and Florence Welch on "Florida!!!"
Dessner said Swift and him began working on the album two years ago, and now they have worked on more than 60 songs together.
"I am forever grateful to Taylor fr sharing her insane talents with and trusting me with her music," Dessner wrote on social media. "I believe these sons are some of the most lyrically acute, intricate, vulnerable and cathartic Taylor has ever written and I am continually astonished by her skills as a songwriter and performer."
"It's not lost on me how lucky I am that this is my job and I feel so grateful to be a part of creating this vast, magically detailed and symbolic world of songs Taylor has crafted that we all get to inhabit and enjoy," Dessner wrote.
When Swift performed in Cincinnati in July 2023, Dessner surprised fans joining Swift on stage for her first-ever performance of "Ivy."
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