Taylor Swift fans were excited to learn last week that the singer features on a pair of new songs from the upcoming Big Red Machine album How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?. One of them, “Renegade,” is out now. Naturally, though, insatiable Swifties are already looking forward to the other song, “Birch,” and Aaron Dessner spoke briefly about what that one is like.
Chatting with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Dessner said, “There’s another song called ‘Birch’ that’s really, really stunning that she sings and is a big part of with Justin [Vernon]. […] Justin sort of leads the charge, but she’s a huge part of it and it’s a duet, then. And I think there’s no real lines being drawn as far as when… I don’t think we… I don’t know, I kind of hope we never stop writing songs together because it’s so fun and so illuminating all the time.”
He also spoke more about “Renegade,” calling it “as good as anything” he and Swift have made together:
“Every time we write a song together, we both sort of are a little bit dumbfounded by it, or sort of like how is this possible because it feels like the shoe fits so well somehow. And I think something about the way that I think, or the way that I relate to music emotionally, and then her incredible acumen or her way of tracing music and her storytelling and her sense of melody, there’s something that really clicks.
And this song, ‘Renegade,’ it’s as good as anything we’ve made together, I think. It’s also something that I, emotionally, was really struck by the first time I heard it, just the way she talks about how anxiety and fear get in the way of loving someone or create an inability for someone to love. And I think it’s incredibly relatable, but it’s expressed in the context of this fairly experimental sound world, although I think we leaned into the… The way it came together as a song, it just really, I think, sums up the whole the Big Red Machine record.”
Watch the full interview below.
How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? is out 8/27 via Jagjaguwar/37d03d. Pre-order it here.