Taylor Swift Teams Up With Bleachers for New Version of ‘Anti-Hero’
Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff took their history of musical collaboration to a new level on Monday (Nov. 7) when they unveiled a new version of the Midnights track “Anti-Hero,” featuring Antonoff’s solo project Bleachers.
In the new version, Antonoff takes over the second verse, changing the viral “sexy baby” lyric to “art bro.” He sings, “Sometimes I feel like everybody is an art bro lately / And I just judge them on the hill / To hard to hang out talking s— about your famous baby / Pierce through the heart of 90s guilt.”
A sweet moment in the pre-chorus finds Swift singing, “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism / Like some kind of congressman,” before Antonoff assures her, “Taylor, you’ll be fine.”
In a post shared to Instagram announcing the new collaboration, Swift captioned a photo of the Grammy winning duo, “Jack’s version of ‘sexy baby’ is ‘art bro’ and we sincerely hope it confuses just as many people.”
Antonoff is credited with co-writing 11 of the 13 songs on the traditional version of Swift’s freshly released 10th studio album, Midnights, including the original version of “Anti-Hero.” In an Instagram post, Swift elaborated on the duo working on the project. “We’d been toying with ideas and had written a few things we loved, but Midnights actually really coalesced and flowed out of us when our partners (both actors) did a film together in Panama,” she wrote. “Jack and I found ourselves back in New York, alone, recording every night, staying up late and exploring old memories and midnights past.”
See Swift’s “Anti-Hero (featuring Bleachers)” announcement below.
Rania Aniftos
Billboard