Razorlight's Johnny Borrell wrote his new song, “Taylor Swift = American Propaganda,” “in about 10 seconds.”
The 44-year-old rock singer insisted that despite the title, the song has nothing to do with the US pop star and was inspired by notes he found in a recording studio.
He told NME: “I went back to the Basque Country where I live and forgot about being a musician for five weeks. My girlfriend asked me, 'Are you writing anything?' and I just laughed. I hadn't even thought about a song until she reminded me. I picked up my guitar and that's when it all happened, to be honest. 'Taylor Swift' came to me in like 10 seconds.”
“When I'm recording, I always write down things people say. When I was in the studio finishing that song, I found a piece of paper that said, 'Taylor Swift = American soft propaganda.' If you want me to comment specifically on Taylor Swift, I don't know if I can because I don't know much about her.”
“Like I said, I don't know much about Taylor Swift, but I want to accept the reality of the creative process and stick with it. And with a lot of albums, people start to want to say something. And then once people start saying, 'Oh, this is a controversial record, what are people going to say about it?', everything starts to smooth out. What's the point in 2024?”
And he urged Taylor's fans not to take the title too seriously.
He said: “I want to stay true to myself. Every step of the way this album was made is a direct reflection of what was going on in the studio. That piece of paper was a joke that someone thought was funny at the time, so why not?”
Razorlight recently released “Planet Nowhere,” the first album recorded since 2008 with the group's classic lineup of Borrell, guitarist Bjorn Agren, drummer Andy Burrows and bassist Carl Dahlem.