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Home / Entertainment

Taylor Swift reveals her boyfriend Joe Alwyn co-wrote songs on Folklore

BANG! Showbiz
25 Nov, 2020 07:02 PM3 mins to read

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Taylor Swift shared that her boyfriend contributed to her latest album. Photo / Getty Images

Taylor Swift shared that her boyfriend contributed to her latest album. Photo / Getty Images

Taylor Swift has confirmed Joe Alwyn wrote some of the songs on her album Folklore.

The 30-year-old singer admitted rumours her actor boyfriend was the man behind the pseudonym William Bowery, who is credited with Bon Iver on her song Exile, as well as another track called Betty.

Speaking on her Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions Disney+ special, she said: "There's been a lot of discussion about William Bowery and his identity 'cause it's not a real person.

"So, William Bowery is Joe, as we know. And Joe plays piano beautifully, and he's just always playing and making things up and kind of creating things ... Exile was crazy because Joe had written that entire piano part and was singing the Bon Iver part.

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 Taylor Swift and British actor Joe Alwyn. Photo / Getty Images
Taylor Swift and British actor Joe Alwyn. Photo / Getty Images

"He was just singing it, the way that the whole first verse is. So I was entranced and asked if we could keep writing that one. It was pretty obvious that it should be a duet because he's got such a low voice and it sounded really good sung down there in that register."

And she explained that Betty came about when she heard the 29-year-old star singing in the shower, admitting they had never officially planned to collaborate until that moment.

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A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

She said: "I just heard Joe singing the entire fully formed chorus of Betty from another room and it was just like, 'Hello'. It was a step that we would have never taken because why would we have ever written a song together?

"So this was the first time we had a conversation where I came in and was like 'Hey, this could be really weird and we could hate this, so because we're in quarantine and there's nothing else going on, could we just try and see what it's like if we write this song together?'"

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Fans had long speculated William Bowery was Joe using an assumed name, because he is the great-grandson of composer William Alwyn and he and Taylor famously first stepped out publicly together for a Kings of Leon concert at The Bowery Hotel in 2016.

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