Only three hours after releasing her new album, Midnights, Taylor Swift has dropped seven more songs written during the album’s conception. Check out the “3am Edition” of Midnights below, with the added songs starting at track 14, “The Great War.” Among the additional batch are three songs prominently featuring the National’s Aaron Dessner, who did not contribute to Midnights after being a big part of Folklore and Evermore. Jack Antonoff, who Swift kept on board for Midnights, worked closely on the other four extra songs.
Swift, who had promised a “special very chaotic surprise” at 3 a.m. Eastern, wrote on social media:
Surprise! I think of Midnights as a complete concept album, with those 13 songs forming a full picture of the intensities of that mystifying, mad hour. However! There were other songs we wrote on our journey to find that magic 13. I’m calling them 3am tracks. Lately I’ve been loving the feeling of sharing more of our creative process with you, like we do with From The Vault tracks. So it’s 3am and I’m giving them to you now.
The three new songs that feature Dessner are “The Great War,” “High Infidelity,” and “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve”; each credits the National member alongside Swift as the song’s producer, composer, and lyricist. “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” also features the National’s Bryce Dessner and Bryan Devendorf, and credits Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon among studio personnel and as an engineer. “High Infidelity” also includes contributions from Big Thief drummer James Krivchenia. Thomas Bartlett, aka Sufjan Stevens collaborator Doveman, is also a guest on all three Dessner tracks.
Swift announced Midnights itself while accepting the trophy for Video of the Year at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards. The album follows Folklore and Evermore, as well as Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version), part of her album rerecording campaign. Swift worked closely with Jack Antonoff on Midnights, which has additional contributions from Lana Del Rey, Zoë Kravitz, Joe Alwyn (aka William Bowery), Jahaan Sweet, Red Hearse’s Sam Dew and Sounwave, members of the Bleachers live band, and more.
