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The indie-folk project – which was created remotely, with multi-hyphenated Dessner bringing the tracks together in Long Pond – became Swift’s only album to spend its first six weeks atop the Billboard 200. It has won Dessner two Grammy nominations, both in the Big Four categories, for Album of the Year and Song of the Year (for “Cardigan”). It also ushered in a new style of writing for Swift: first-person fiction.
On the final night of filming for the special (a process that was done following CDC guidelines, with a limited crew and COVID-19 testing), Dessner remembers how he, Antonoff, and Swift stayed up until at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. – – drink and celebrate the more than warm embrace Folklore has received. But in the days that followed, Swift ended up staying, and she and Dessner unexpectedly continued to work. Eventually they got 17 more songs, which all became the sister album, Always, published December 11.
“Folklore was almost immediately treated as a classic or a masterpiece, ”Dessner explains. “He was brought up quite quickly and had great commercial success, so obviously it’s hard to keep up with something like that. But one of the things that I love [Evermore] is the way [Taylor] was jumping from different cliffs. The ability that she has to tell these stories, but also to push what she does musically, is truly amazing. It was as if I had taken a crash course, a master’s program, for six months.
Below, Dessner tells Billboard all about the work of his second album in five months with one of the biggest pop stars in the world.
With Folklore much of the production and arrangements came from a file you sent to Taylor. Did you keep pulling away, or were you Always made from scratch?
Much of it was made from scratch. After Folklore came out, I think Taylor had originally written two songs that we both thought were for Big Red Machine, “Closure” and “Dorothea”. But the more I listened to them, not that they couldn’t be Big Red Machine songs, but they felt like interesting and exciting Taylor songs. “Closure” is very experimental and in this strange time signature, but all the same lyrically felt as an evolution of Folklore, and “Dorothea” really felt like she was reflecting on a character.
And me, in a way to celebrate Folklore, had written a piece of music that I called “Westerly”, that’s where she has the house she wrote “Last Great American Dynasty” on. I’m gonna do that sometimes, just do things for friends or write music just to write it down, but I didn’t think it would turn into a song at all. And she, like an hour later, returned “Willow” written on that song, and that kind of set [things in motion] and we just started to fill this Dropbox again. It was kind of like, “What’s going on?”
And then it continued. She wrote “Gold Rush” with Jack [Antonoff] and at the end there were 17 songs, and it was only a few months after Folklore came out, so it’s pretty wild. Each time, we would just be in disbelief and kind of like, “How is that possible?” Mainly because we didn’t need to talk a lot about structure, ideas or anything – it was just this weird avalanche.
Considering how the industry Folklore was, what pressure did it introduce this time around?
I think because of the way we did it, it really wasn’t like producing a giant record or something, it still had that very homey feeling. There might have been a moment or two where I think Taylor was wondering when and how to shut down Always, but I think the louder he got, and as each song came together it started to sound like, “This is a sister album – it’s part of the same flow of creativity and collaboration and the stories feel connected. “
And aesthetically, for me, Always is wilder and sometimes has more of a gang dynamic. You can feel his writing even more refined on that, in terms of the storytelling, and also just that freedom to do the kind of songs that were coming. When she started writing less diaristically and telling these stories, I think she discovered that she had this incredible wealth of experience and depth in her storytelling that was just so natural. She could easily make those songs more thoughtful or blur the lines of what’s autobiographical and what isn’t in interesting ways. It was the most natural thing in the world.
Folklore was done entirely remotely, how has this process changed to Always?
It was both. Part was distant, but after the Folklore: Long Pond studio sessions, [Taylor] stayed a long time and we recorded a lot. She actually wrote “Tis the Damn Season” when she arrived for the first day of rehearsal. We played all night and drank lots of wine after the fireside chat – and we were all pretty drunk, to be honest – and then I thought she was going to bed. But the next morning at 9 or something like that, she showed up and thought, “I have to sing this song to you,” and she wrote it in the middle of the night. It was definitely another time [where] my brain exploded, because she sang it to me in my kitchen, and it was just surreal.
This music is actually older – it’s something I wrote many years ago, and I hid myself because I loved it so much. It meant something to me, and it felt like the perfect song had finally found it. There was a feeling in it, and she identified that feeling: This feeling of… “The pain in you, put there by the pain in me.” I think everyone can understand this. This is one of my favorites.
Have you watched the Disney + special?
I’m not a huge fan of watching myself – but I watched it and found it gorgeous. It’s funny, because it was very DIY in a way; a tight little crew was there to do it, no one was doing our hair or our hair or anything like that, it’s very authentic. I rehearsed a little before, but we were both – Jack and I – figuring it out as we went along.
And I think the good thing is that all songs could work like this, and that’s part of a testament to the strength of the album. With no big production stuff or backing vocals or anything like that, the songs stand out, and Taylor just sang shit. And hanging out with them was so much fun. They are almost like brothers and sisters; they’ve known each other for a long time, there’s this quick humor between them.
Would you like to do something like this again with Always?
I don’t know if you can recreate exactly what we did with it Folklore. I haven’t told anyone about it. But for me the songs of Always would be even more fun to play because more of them feel like group songs. But, that being said, I won’t be disappointed if we don’t – there’s no plan underway to do it.
During an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Jimmy asked Taylor about the rumors behind Woodvale and if there’s a third album coming up, which she says she’s sold out. How do you feel in terms of energy?
I think we both felt like it was Mission: Impossible – and we pulled it off. I imagine we’re going to make music together in a certain way forever, because it was that kind of chemistry, and I’m so thankful and grateful for what happened, but I think it was. there is a lot there. It’s not just the two albums, there are bonus tracks as well, and two of my favorite songs aren’t even on that album. We’re not pouring into another now.
I’m going to finish the Big Red Machine album – I was really very close to finishing it when all of a sudden the Folklore and Always vortex has opened up, and in fact Taylor has been very helpful and involved in that too – and The National is starting to talk about making music, and I think she’s probably going to take a break. But I’m so excited for all the things we could do in the future – it’s definitely a lifelong relationship. And I would say the same for everyone who worked on these records, including my brother and everyone who contributed. It’s a really special legacy.
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