It's pretty wild how in the year 2022, Taylor Swift is still having to deal with people who underestimate her capabilities. This week's man who will soon come to regret doing so is Blur lead singer and Gorillaz co-founder Damon Albarn, who told the Los Angeles Times that Taylor “doesn't write her own songs.”
We can only imagine Taylor read the interview with a long-suffering sigh. In the piece, the interviewer stated, “She may not be to your taste, but Taylor Swift is an excellent songwriter.” To which Albarn responded with the above falsehood. The interviewer pushed back, “Of course she does. Co-writes some of them.” Albarn's response was both mostly untrue and kind of meandering.
“That doesn’t count,” he said. “I know what co-writing is. Co-writing is very different to writing. I’m not hating on anybody, I’m just saying there’s a big difference between a songwriter and a songwriter who co-writes. Doesn’t mean that the outcome can’t be really great. And some of the greatest singers — I mean, Ella Fitzgerald never wrote a song in her life. When I sing, I have to close my eyes and just be in there. I suppose I’m a traditionalist in that sense. A really interesting songwriter is Billie Eilish and her brother. I’m more attracted to that than to Taylor Swift. It’s just darker — less endlessly upbeat. Way more minor and odd. I think she’s exceptional.”
Differences in taste are, of course, understandable. If you like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Eilish, well, who doesn't? (Though calling Taylor's songs “endlessly upbeat” in the same album cycle where we got a 10-minute version of the devastating ballad “All Too Well” is… a choice.) Misstating the facts of someone's career, on the other hand, isn't so understandable. In a concise tweet response, Taylor called out Albarn's words for the untruths they are, centering his statements about her work.
“I was such a big fan of yours until I saw this,” she tweeted. “I write ALL of my own songs. Your hot take is completely false and SO damaging. You don’t have to like my songs but it’s really fucked up to try and discredit my writing. WOW … PS I wrote this tweet all by myself in case you were wondering.”
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Within a few hours, Albarn had responded with a swift apology. “I totally agree with you,” he wrote on Twitter. “I had a conversation about songwriting and sadly it was reduced to clickbait. I apologise unreservedly and unconditionally. The last thing I would want to do is discredit your songwriting. I hope you understand. - Damon.”
It makes sense this would be a sore spot, considering Speak Now exists — a whole album she wrote entirely on her own in order to prove that she could. She's since written and co-written hundreds of songs, and when she does co-write, she's still steering the ship. Watch Miss Americana and see her interactions with Brendon Urie and Jack Antonoff and Joel Little. Watch The Long Pond Sessions.
And the inaccuracies don't really stop there — what Billie and Finneas do together is co-writing, it's collaboration; and that doesn't belittle or demean their work to say that (and of course, they're songwriters individually, as well). Meanwhile, to say Ella Fitzgerald “never wrote a song in her life” doesn't really capture the full breadth of her power and, in some sense, songwriting. Jazz music is all about improvisation, and Ella was a queen, reimagining classics with new emphasis and phrasing. Even when she forgot lyrics, she created her own sounds and brought down the house.
Ultimately, Taylor Swift is an artist who is in the middle of re-releasing her old albums so she can own the songs she wrote. Songwriting is quite literally her whole thing. 2008 called and would like its dated Taylor Swift criticisms back.
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Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: Taylor Swift New Album “Folklore": Review