Taylor Swift Explains What Led to Her New Surprise Album 'Evermore'

Taylor Swift is talking evermore and her newfound creative freedom.

The 31-year-old “Willow” singer-songwriter joined Zane Lowe on Apple Music to discuss her new album, which will debut in full on Tuesday (December 15) at 5 p.m. PST only on Apple Music at apple.com/-evermore.

Here’s what she had to say…

On how it came together: “I feel differently today than I felt the day after releasing folklore because even the day after releasing folklore Aaron [Dessner] and I were still bouncing ideas back and forth and we just knew we were gonna keep writing music. I didn’t know if it was for an album of mine or Aaron and Justin Vernon have a really amazing projector called Big Red Machine, so… we kept writing thinking maybe we were gonna do some Big Red Machine stuff but the things that we ended up writing really sounded more like a continuation of folklore so… when I put out folklore I remember just feeling so proud and happy but still like foot on the gas, like ‘let’s keep going – this is fun – I’m not finished with this’ – and everybody, all my collaborators, we all felt the same way about it so we just kept going. With this one I have this feeling of sort of quiet conclusion and sort of this weird serenity of we did what we set out to do and we’re all really proud of it and that feels really really nice.”

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On her creative path with folklore: “I was just so happy that my world felt opened up creatively. There was a point that I got to as a writer who only wrote very diaristic songs that I felt it was unsustainable for my future moving forward. It felt like too hot of a microscope… it felt a bit like I was like ‘why am I just like… if I’m writing about my life and all it is’… on my bad days I would feel like I was loading a cannon of clickbait when that’s not what I want for my life. And I think that when I put out folklore I felt like if I can do this…this thing where I get to create characters in this mythological American town or wherever I imagine them and I can reflect my own emotions onto what I think they might be feeling and I can create stories and characters and stories and arcs and all this stuff but I don’t have to have it feel like when I put out an album I’m just like giving tabloids ammunition and stuff…and constantly kind of like examining yourself in a way that feels like…I felt like there would be a point in my life where I could no longer really do that and still maintain a place of good mental health and emotional health and all that. So what I felt after we put out folklore was like ‘oh wow, people are into this too, this thing that feels really good for my life and feels really good for my creativity…it feels good for them too? Oh my god! I saw a lane for my future that…it was a real breakthrough moment of excitement and happiness and I kind of referred to writing these songs as a flotation device because obviously this year is hell on earth for everyone and seeing what your fellow humans are going through.”

On her collaborations: “The Long Pond Studio sessions was the first time that Jack [Antonoff], Aaron, and I were in the same room and I still haven’t been in the same room with Justin Vernon who has now collaborated on two albums heavily and we’ve talked but we’ve just never been in the same space together. It’s pretty wild.”

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