Taylor Swift | Razorlight explains song inspired by Taylor Swift

Johnny Borrell of Razorlight wrote his new song “Taylor Swift = US Propaganda” “in about 10 seconds”.

The 44-year-old rocker stressed that despite its title, the song had nothing to do with the US pop star, but was inspired by a note he found in the recording studio.

He told NME: “I went back to the Basque Country where I live and promptly forgot I was a musician for five weeks. My girlfriend asked me, 'Are you writing something?' and I just laughed. I hadn't even thought about it until she pointed it out to me. I picked up a guitar and, to be honest, pretty much everything else happened. 'Taylor Swift' popped into my head in about 10 seconds.

“When we record, I always write down what people say. When I was finishing the song in the studio, I saw a piece of paper that said, 'Taylor Swift = US soft propaganda.' If you want me to comment specifically on Taylor Swift, I'm not sure I can really do that because I don't know much about her.

“Like I said, I don't know much about Taylor Swift. But I like to take the reality of the creative process and keep it. And with a lot of albums, people want to say things at the beginning, and when they start saying, 'Oh, this is controversial, what are people going to say?', everything gets smoothed over. What good is that going to do in 2024?”

And he urged Taylor's fans not to take the title seriously.

He said: “I want to stay true to myself. Every step of this album gives you what happened in the studio. This piece of paper is a joke that someone thought was funny at the time. So why not?”

Razorlight recently announced “Planet Nowhere” – their first album since 2008, recorded with the group’s classic lineup of Borrell, guitarist Bjorn Agren, drummer Andy Burrows and bassist Carl Dalem.