“I did that by myself at my house in about 20 minutes. They said, ‘Sing this.’ I said, ‘OK’”: How Bon Iver’s billion-stream collab with Taylor Swift came together in record time

Bon Iver's Justin Vernon has revealed that his contribution to Taylor Swift's Exile was recorded in less time than you might have expected.

In a new interview with The Times, the Wisconsinite opened up on the genesis of Exile, a collaboration with Taylor Swift from the singer's 2020 Folklore album, telling the publication: “I did that by myself at my house in about 20 minutes."

“They said, ‘Sing this.’ I said, ‘OK,'" Vernon continues, modestly downplaying a contribution that made the doleful duet a clear highlight from Swift's indie-folk opus, which won Album of the Year at the Grammys the following year. Racking up just north of 1 billion streams on Spotify, Exile has since become the most popular entry in Vernon's catalogue by a country mile. (Not a bad result for 20 minutes' work.)

While Folklore was recorded in Los Angeles – with production helmed by fellow Bon Iver collaborator Aaron Dessner of The National – Vernon's part on Exile was tracked at his April Base studio in Eaux Claires, Wisconsin. Contrasting Swift's soft vocals with Vernon's characterful baritone, the song is a duet that imagines a dialogue between two estranged lovers reflecting on the demise of their relationship.

The pace of Vernon's contribution was aided by the fact that Swift and her partner, Joe Alwyn, had already sketched out the majority of what would become the final song. After recording a rough demo with Dessner, Swift and her producer considered a number of options for the duet before ultimately settling on Vernon.

"We talked a lot about who she thought would be perfect to sing, and we kept coming back to Justin," Dessner told Vulture in 2020. "Obviously, he’s a dear friend of mine and collaborator. I said, 'Well, if he’s inspired by the song, he’ll do it, and if not, he won’t.' I sent it to him and said, 'No pressure at all, literally no pressure, but how do you feel about this?' He said, 'Wow.'"

"He wrote some parts into it also, and we went back and forth a little bit, but it felt like an incredibly natural and safe collaboration between friends. It didn’t feel like getting a guest star or whatever [...] I think they both put so much raw emotion into it. It’s like a surface bubbling. It’s believable, you know? You believe that they’re having this intense dialogue."

Since releasing Exile, the pair have only performed the song together once, at Bon Iver's 2022 concert at London's O2 Arena. When asked if he considered joining Swift on stage for her record-breaking Eras Tour, Vernon replied: "I don't know if I could handle that much attention".

Read the full interview at The Times' website.