Damon Albarn apologizes for saying Taylor Swift doesn’t write her songs

By: MRT Desk

Published on:

Things turned ant-colored on Twitter after Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn stated in an interview that Taylor Swift doesn’t write any of her songs. Upon learning of it, the singer came out to defend her authorship in a couple of tweets, an act that was hotly seconded by other of her colleagues, including Aaron Dessner of The National, producer Jack Antonoff and even the president-elect of Chile, Gabriel Boric.

On Sunday (January 23) a new interview with Damon Albarn was published for the Los Angeles Times, and in that piece, Albarn made some comments on Taylor Swift’s songwriting. After journalist Mikael Wood called Swift an “excellent songwriter,” Albarn replied, “She doesn’t write her own songs.”

When the interviewer pointed out that he does, in fact, write his own songs and that he co-writes some of them, Albarn said:

“That doesn’t count. I know what co-writing is. Co-writing is very different from writing. I’m not hating anyone, I’m just saying there’s a big difference between a composer and a composer who co-writes. That doesn’t mean the result can’t be really good. And some of the best singers – I mean, Ella Fitzgerald never wrote a song in her life (…) I guess I’m a traditionalist in that sense.”

“A very interesting songwriter is Billie Eilish and her brother. I’m more attracted to taylor than Taylor Swift. It’s darker, less optimistic. It is much smaller and stranger. I think it’s exceptional.”

Via The Los Angeles Times.

After learning of the Englishman’s statements, Swift railed against him saying:

“I was a big fan of yours until I saw this. I write ALL my songs. Your opinion is completely false and so harmful. You don’t have to like my songs, but it’s really fucked up to try to discredit my writings. WOW.”

In a second tweet, Swift added, “PS. I wrote this tweet by myself in case you were wondering.”

Naturally, Taylor Swift’s tweet reached biblical proportions (more than 150,000 retweets as of this story), which is why Damon Albarn had to go out and ask for a brief apology, blaming the “clickbait” that the L.A. Timessupposedly wanted to generate.

“I totally agree with you. I had a conversation about songwriting and unfortunately it came down to clickbait. I apologize without reservation and without conditions. The last thing I would want to do is discredit your way of composing. I hope you understand.”

Leave a Comment