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Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
Entertainment
Carlos De Loera

Taylor Swift's 'Midnights' credits reveal writers including Zoë Kravitz and Joe Alwyn

The writing credits have been released for Taylor Swift's upcoming album, "Midnights," and they include actor Zoë Kravitz and Swift's longtime boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn.

The credits, as seen on the iTunes desktop app, show that Kravitz, with five other writers including Swift and her frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff, helped create the track "Lavender Haze." Kravitz also assisted on the album's 11th song, "Karma." Whether Kravitz, who is the singer for the electropop duo Lolawolf, will also be providing vocals for the songs is still unknown.

In an Instagram video earlier this month, Swift explained she "happened upon'" the phrase "lavender haze" while watching an episode of "Mad Men" and thought it "sounded cool." She later found out the phrase was used in the '50s to describe being in love.

"Like, if you were in the 'Lavender Haze,' that meant you were in that all-encompassing love glow, and I thought that was really beautiful," she said. "And I guess theoretically when you're in the 'Lavender Haze,' you'll do anything to stay there and not let people bring you down off of that cloud. And I think a lot of people have to deal with this now ... because we live in the era of social media and if the world finds out that you're in love with somebody, they're gonna weigh in on it.

"My relationship for six years, we've had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff, and we just ignore it. And so this song is sort of about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff."

Alwyn, who stars alongside Margaret Qualley in Claire Denis' "Stars at Noon," helped pen the song "Sweet Nothing." He is credited officially as William Bowery, a pseudonym he also used for his credits on Swift's albums "Folklore" and "Evermore." In her Disney+ special, "Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions," the "All Too Well" singer revealed "William Bowery is Joe" and said that he wrote the chorus for the track "Betty" and that he came up with the first verse and piano accompaniment for "Exile" on the album. Alwyn also helped craft three songs on the "Folklore" follow-up album, "Evermore," including the title track.

During a May appearance on "The Kelly Clarkson Show," Alwyn explained why he and Swift used an alias.

"We chose to do it so the people first and foremost would listen to the music before dissecting the fact that we did it together," he told Clarkson. "We did it under the name William Bowery. Very fancy. It sounds like a kind of Agatha Christie character that should be wearing a monocle with a big mustache."

The "Midnights" credits also show that Swift and Grammy-winning producer Antonoff teamed for 11 of the LP's 13 tracks, with the "Cardigan" artist writing the track "Vigilante S—" by herself.

Swift has been dripping information out about her forthcoming album drop by drop. Last week, she shared details on Instagram about her collaboration with singer Lana Del Rey on the song "Snow on the Beach."

The "Cruel Summer" musician described Del Rey as "one of the best musical artists ever."

"The fact that I get to exist at the same time as her is an honor and a privilege and the fact that she would be so generous as to collaborate with us on this song is something I'm going to be grateful for for life," Swift said of Del Rey. "Absolutely love her and I really hope you love this song as much as I do."

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