Taylor Swift has long been a fan of The National, at least once referring to them as her favourite band.
Her relationship with them goes deeper than admiration, though: she’s worked extensively with the band’s Aaron Dessner - notably on her ‘lockdown albums’ Folklore and Evermore - and guested on The National’s The Alcott, from their 2023 album First Two Pages of Frankenstein.
This collaboration followed The National’s appearance on Coney Island, a song from the aforementioned Evermore.
Singing on both of these tracks was The National’s frontman, Matt Berninger, and as he prepares to release Get Sunk, his new solo album, he's been discussing his experience of working with Swift in an interview with The Times.
When it was put to him that, as the father of a teenage daughter, being in Swift’s orbit must make him the ultimate ‘cool dad’, he offered some insight into how people tend to react when they learn that he’s in the orbit of the biggest pop star on the planet.
“It’s an abstract thing for people,” he says.“People think I’ve been to the moon, they think I’ve met an alien.”
Having had the opportunity to work with the very much human Swift, though, what did he learn from her?
“Most songwriters, most artists are insecure, dorky nerds who feel misunderstood by the universe,” he admits. “They all started out writing little songs about their hearts in their bedrooms, every single one of them. I think Taylor is one of the best lyricists, she manages to get a listener inside a world and feel like they have a confidante and a dear friend who gets them. And how does she do that? By writing great fucking songs. So yeah, I learnt a lot from Taylor Swift.”
Berninger is just one of many Swift collaborators to praise her songwriting chops. Just last month, British artist Imogen Heap - who worked with Swift on Clean, from her 1989 album - highlighted her “extremely efficient” process, and songwriter Liz Rose, who co-wrote 2012 fan favourite All Too Well, praised her “drive and talent”.
