Taylor Swift's penchant for loading her songs, videos, and liner notes with hidden messages has turned her fans into dedicated sleuths. Any new release by the artist, whether it be an Instagram post or a whole album, is immediately dissected and mined for clues. And with the surprise July drop release of her latest record Folklore, Swifties were given a new mystery to unravel. Quickly, theories started to pop up online about the singer's co-writer, "William Bowery," who's credited on two songs but who doesn't seem to exist. In her Disney+ special, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, Taylor Swift confirms that Bowery is the alias of boyfriend Joe Alwyn, who actually contributed to those two tracks.
"William Bowery is Joe, as we know," she says in the film, via ET Online. "And Joe—Joe plays piano beautifully, and he's always just playing and making things up and kind of creating things."
Swift has been linked to Alwyn, an actor who's appeared in films including Harriet and The Favourite, since 2016. His alias (which fans connected to the Bowery Hotel, where he and Swift were spotted shortly after they went public with their relationship) is listed as co-writer on the Folklore songs "Betty" and "Exile." In the documentary, Swift elaborates on how the collaboration came about.
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Alwyn is responsible for the chorus of the track "Betty," which is about a teen love triangle, the artist explains. (By the way, the fictional subjects of the song—James, Inez, and Betty—are actually the names of the three children of Swift's pals, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. They hadn't shared the name of their youngest [the eponymous Betty] publicly before this, evidently choosing to do so through the lyrics. Just more proof that Swift loves lacing secret codes into her music!)
According to Swift, it was her boyfriend who gave her the idea of writing the song from the perspective of a teenage boy. "He was singing the chorus of it and I thought it sounded really good from a man's voice, from a masculine perspective," she says in the film. "I really liked that it seemed to be an apology."
Swift also shares that this was the first time the couple had ever written together. And though it could have been "really weird," they used quarantine as an opportunity to try it. "Betty" led to Alwyn also writing on "Exile," Swift's duet with Bon Iver vocalist Justin Vernon.
"'Exile' was crazy, because Joe had written that entire piano part and he was singing the Bon Iver part," Swift says. "And so, I was entranced, and I asked if we could keep writing that one."
The singer doesn't comment on why Alwyn opted for a pen name or why they decided to reveal his work on the album now. But Swift's fans can hold their heads high knowing that they correctly solved another one of her puzzles.
Keep reading for songs Swift secretly wrote for other artists, and for more shocking overnight drops, check out the 10 Biggest Surprise Albums Released Out of Nowhere.
Read the original article on Best Life.
1 | "You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" by Miley Cyrus
DFree/ShutterstockSwift not only performed her own song "Crazier" for the soundtrack of Hannah Montana: The Movie, she also wrote the song "You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" for star Miley Cyrus to sing.
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2 | "Two Is Better Than One" by Boys Like Girls
YouTube/BoysLikeGirlsSwift contributed her vocals and her writing prowess to the 2009 single "Two Is Better Than One" by pop-punk band Boys Like Girls. It made it to No. 72 on the 2010 Billboard Hot 100 chart.
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3 | "This Is What You Came For" by Calvin Harris ft. Rihanna
Tinseltown/ShutterstockSwift's relationship with DJ Calvin Harris evidently didn't end well, but at least it left us with a showcase for Rihanna. After their breakup, the DJ confirmed that Swift co-wrote his hit "This Is What You Came For," featuring vocals by Rihanna, under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg.
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4 | "Beautiful Ghosts" from Cats
YouTube/Universal PicturesLest you forget, 2019 gave the world the Taylor Swift/Andrew Lloyd Webber collaboration we didn't know we were missing. Swift appeared in the much-derided movie adaptation of Cats singing a song from the original musical, and she also sat down with Webber to co-write the song "Beautiful Ghosts." It's sung by Francesca Hayward as Victoria in the film, but Swift also recorded her own version, which is played over the credits.
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