Taylor Swift and Bon Iver's exciting partnership that garnered millions of streams.

The single “Exile”, which is part of the album “Folklore”, released in 2020, features the indie folk group led by Justin Vernon, and was performed live for the first time in London, at the OVO Arena Wembley. The track is co-produced by The National's Aaron Dessner along with Taylo's ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn.

The musical partnership between Taylor and Bon Iver recently reached the historic and impressive milestone of 600 million streams on Spotify. The song portrays a classic love between Romeo and Juliet, with an emotional twist in an intense ballad atmosphere.

The single not only won fans' hearts with its melody, but with its behind-the-scenes intrusion. “Exile” was the first song Taylor co-wrote with her ex-boyfriend, who is also a great actor. In the year of the album's release, Joe was named with the pseudonym William Bowery, to keep the collaboration discreet, but during a Disney+ special, titled “Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions”, the truth was revealed.

_{Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions on Disney+. (Photo: Reproduction/DisneyPlus)}

Collaborations

Taylor and the band have already made other collaborations, such as on the album “Evermore”, considered the predecessor of “Folklore”, on the single that bears the same name as the album. This makes the relationship between the singer and the band grow more and more, which makes fans suspect that they have yet another new track that is ready to be released.

The band collaborated with Taylor on two songs. The first song was on the album “Folklore” and the second on the album “Evermore”.

Exile

In an interview, Taylor shared that Joe wrote much of the single on the piano, as in the excerpt: “I can see you standing there, baby / With his arms around your body / Laughing, but the joke isn't funny at all.”

The singer revealed that the actor from “The Favorite” was “always playing around and inventing things and kind of creating things. I was like, 'Hey, this might be really weird, and we might hate this.'” she commented, “because we're in quarantine and there's nothing else going on, we could just try to see what it's like if we wrote this song together?”.

Proving that the collaboration was a success, the album was the winner of the year at the 2021 Grammys.

At the time, Taylor commented on how she felt writing the track, “We are so proud of 'Exile'”, said Taylor. “All I have to do is come up with some lyrics and come up with a heartbreaking story to write with him.”

_{“Exile” music video by Taylor Swift ft. Bon Iver. (Video: Reproduction/YouTube/@TaylorSwift)}

In an interview with Rolling Stone, the song's co-producer, Aaron Dessner described his experience, “I’ve rarely been so inspired by someone (Swift), and it’s still hard to believe that this happened – these songs came at such a difficult time”.

Even with the distance of the pandemic, the album became approved and existing, with an ironic touch, called “Exile”. Vernon and Swift's duet working as songwriters and exchanging verses on this track produced by Dessner was considered a miracle of the year for the producer.

Aaron highlighted something in the song's excerpts that really sounded like a pandemic. With the story of a “ex couple disagree with each other and are distant” (distance described as exile) throughout the song they also throw things at each other (“You never gave a warning sign / I gave so many signs”) in the final moments of the song and are forced to discuss what really happened. “That's why we'll look back one day and say, “That sounds like a pandemic song.””.

The single is available on all digital platforms.

Featured Photo: Exile reaches millions of streams. Reproduction/Variety.