Taylor Swift‘s songs often elicit strong reactions from people, but her producer and musical collaborator Jack Antonoff reveals that one of her recent songs shocked him so much it knocked the wind out of him.
In an interview with Vulture, Jack talks about working with Taylor, Lana Del Rey, The 1975 and his own band, Bleachers. He says, “The stuff that shocks me the most is someone’s vulnerability in a song. The end of ‘You’re on Your Own, Kid’ is one of those moments for me.”
The song, from Midnights, is famously the one that inspired people to make friendship bracelets for the Eras Tour, but it also seemingly documents Taylor’s own artistic journey. At the end, she sings, “You’re on your own kid/ Yeah, you can face this/ You’re on your own kid/ You always have been.”
“I remember, she wrote that right in front of me and then we put it down [on tape], and I was completely punched in the gut,” recalls Jack. “Beautiful.”
In general, Jack says that “every one” of Taylor’s eras has been surprising to him: “There’s really nothing for her and I left to do if we’re not completely stretching ourselves out there into the darkness … with Midnights, we did so many things that we had never done before.”
“With her, I’m constantly taken aback,” he adds. “I’ll joke with her sometimes when we [create] something crazy, like, ‘Okay, I guess we still f****** got it!’”
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