Taylor Swift and Paul McCartney were both scheduled to play Glastonbury this year where fans would have heard the pair duet on “Shake It Off,” but like every event that included people being within a foot of each other, the annual festival was cancelled. Instead, the superstars used their newfound free time to record albums, with the former Beatle writing
McCartney III and Swift surprising fans with the unannounced
Folklore, which currently holds the title as the best-selling album of the year. Their open-ended schedule also gave the two pop superstars an opportunity to spend the day together doing a photoshoot and interview for
Rolling Stone, where Swift spoke publicly for one of the first times about her four-year relationship with boyfriend Joe Alwyn.Calling it the "field trip you’re excited to go on," Swift confirmed that the shoot was attended by McCartney’s wife Nancy, photographed by his daughter Mary, and featured pieces from his daughter Stella’s collection. Fans of Swift know that the popstar and the English fashion designer are longtime friends, with McCartney even getting a shout out on Swift’s 2019 “London Boy,” which was dedicated to Alwyn.
As Swift notes, she and the iconic musician have met a handful of times either through her friendship with Stella or on stage at music events. But their meet up this past October marked the most time the pair have spent talking about music and their personal lives, including Swift’s relationship with Alwyn.“I know you have done a really excellent job of this in your personal life: carving out a human life within a public life, and how scary that can be when you do fall in love and you meet someone, especially if you’ve met someone who has a very grounded, normal way of living,” Swift said to McCartney. “I, oftentimes, in my anxieties, can control how I am as a person and how normal I act and rationalize things, but I cannot control if there are 20 photographers outside in the bushes and what they do and if they follow our car and if they interrupt our lives. I can’t control if there’s going to be a fake weird headline about us in the news tomorrow.”
Her musings were in reference to her song “Peace,” which appeared on this year’s
Folklore. Swift said that the lyrics are "rooted in her personal life," singing “And you know that I'd / Swing with you for the fences / Sit with you in the trenches / Give you my wild, give you a child / Give you the silence that only comes / When two people understand each other / Family that I chose now that I see your brother as my brother.” Swift addresses living in the public eye and the effect it has on her relationship with Alwyn, singing “Would it be enough / If I could never give you peace.”Asking whether her partner sympathizes and understands the realities of Swift’s lack of control over outside forces peering into their private time, Swift told McCartney, “Absolutely. But I think that in knowing him and being in the relationship I am in now, I have definitely made decisions that have made my life feel more like a real life and less like just a storyline to be commented on in tabloids.”“Whether that’s deciding where to live, who to hang out with, when to not take a picture—the idea of privacy feels so strange to try to explain, but it’s really just trying to find bits of normalcy. That’s what that song 'Peace' is talking about. Like, would it be enough if I could never fully achieve the normalcy that we both crave?” she said.[video_embed id='2026855']RELATED: Kanye West opens up about crashing Taylor Swift’s VMAs speech [/video_embed]Speaking about their efforts to stay busy during quarantine, Swift also talked about her new set of hobbies, which include reading and sewing. Noting that her friends have recently begun the "baby boom," Swift said she’s been making handcrafted gifts, including a
silk blanket she sent to Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom's daughter, Daisy. “I was just thinking, ‘I really want to spend time with my hands, making something for their children.’ So I made this really cool flying-squirrel stuffed animal that I sent to one of my friends. I sent a teddy bear to another one, and I started making these little silk baby blankets with embroidery. It’s gotten pretty fancy. And I’ve been painting a lot,” said Swift.[video_embed id='2030335']BEFORE YOU GO: Cat attempts daily hilarious attack on mail carrier [/video_embed]
