Lover (Taylor Swift song)

co-produced "Lover".|alt=Jack Antonoff on a guitar The American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift described her seventh studio album, Lover, as a "love letter to love" that conveys an emotional spectrum "through a romantic gaze". The album took under three months to record; recording ended in February 2019. Released on August 23, 2019, through Republic Records, Lover musically draws on 1980s-inspired pop rock and synth-pop. Its songs explore many aspects of Swift's personality and altogether convey her emotional liberation to embrace future possibilities, renouncing the media gossip and celebrity-inspired themes on her previous album, Reputation (2017). Jack Antonoff, who had worked with Swift on her two previous studio albums (1989 and Reputation), co-produced 11 tracks for Lover. The title track, "Lover", is one of the three songs (alongside "Cornelia Street" and "Daylight") on the album that Swift wrote by herself. She wrote "Lover" late one night on piano at her home in Nashville, Tennessee. To that end, she was inspired by how newly-wed couples customize their marriage vows, and described the bridge as very personal and intimate. After finishing the lyrics, she sent a voice memo of the song to Antonoff; the two went to Electric Lady Studios in New York City together with the engineer Laura Sisk the next day to record the song. Because Swift wanted "Lover" to be a timeless love song, she envisioned as if it could have been played "at a wedding reception in 1980 or 1970 or now". She and Antonoff used instruments that were all invented by the 1970s or earlier. They replaced the original piano with guitar, composed the bridge, and incorporated a bassline inspired by the music of Paul McCartney. Antonoff also played live drums, a bass guitar, an upright piano, and the Mellotron on "Lover", produced it with Swift, and recorded it with Sisk, assisted by John Rooney. Serban Ghenea, assisted by John Hanes, mixed the track at MixStar Studios in Virginia Beach, Virginia. == Music ==

{{listen "Lover" is built upon a slow waltz tempo and a retro-styled musical motif. Swift said while recording, she imagined the production to sound like "just the last two people on a dance floor at 3 a.m. swaying". The production incorporates piano, reverbed drums and vocals, and Mellotron-simulated, pizzicato strings. The rhythm is punctuated by booming snare drums and a bass line described by Vanity Fair Erin Vanderhoff as "sonorous, swung". Many critics compared the production to the music of the alternative rock band Mazzy Star, specifically their 1993 single "Fade into You". Roisin O'Connor of The Independent described the track as a tender, 1960s-styled acoustic ballad that shows Swift experimenting with rhythm and meter. Many music critics, including Alice Vincent of The Daily Telegraph, Louise Bruton of The Irish Times, Will Hodgkinson of The Times, and Annie Zaleski of The A.V. Club, characterized "Lover" as a country song, with Zaleski describing it as a country torch song and an indie folk production. Vincent and NME Karen Gwee considered the guitar-based melody of "Lover" a throwback to Swift's early country-music albums, with the former commenting that it is a "mature companion" to Fearless (2008) and Speak Now (2010). while Jon Caramanica of The New York Times described its sound as "a steroidal take on the alt-country of the 1990s". In disagreement, Billboards Jason Lipshutz argued that "Lover" was not a country song, but it "certainly nods to the bare songwriting that marked much of Swift's early career". Mark Richardson of The Wall Street Journal deemed the genre dream pop, Mikael Wood from the Los Angeles Times called the song "dream-folk", and The Ringer Lindsay Zoladz wrote that the single "doesn't sound like anything else currently popular" on either of country or pop radio formats. == Lyrics and interpretation ==

The lyrics to "Lover" are about a couple's committed and intimate relationship. In the verses, the narrator describes scenes of their domestic life, such as leaving the Christmas lights on past the holiday season and having their friends sleeping over on the living-room floor. She explained that the change was meant to portray simple and universal experiences of couples who live together, "It's not about that being a crazy thing. It's about how mundane it is." She asks to commit to her partner in the refrain, "Can I go where you go?/ Can we always be this close?" The marriage-vow-inspired bridge is a declaration of their romance, "Ladies and gentlemen will you please stand/ With every guitar string scar in my hand/ I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover." The narrator promises to stay with her lover, "You'll save all your dirtiest jokes for me/ And at every table, I'll save you a seat." Some media publications noticed the lyric, "My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue," drawing on the bridal rhyme "Something old", which describes the bridal costume on her wedding day, "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue." Critics related the song's theme to Swift's past songs, with many drawing similarities between the narratives of "Lover" and "New Year's Day", a song taken from Reputation (2017). Vincent opined that the "guitar string scars" imagery is an allusion to Swift's albums Red (2012) and 1989 (2014), on which she moved from country to pop. ==Release==

Swift previewed "Lover" and part of the lyrics in a Vogue cover interview published on August 8, 2019. Republic Records released "Lover" for digital download and streaming on August 16, 2019. The same day, a lyric video was released onto YouTube; it shows the song's lyrics projected onto a white bedsheet, on which home videos play in the background. On September 3, 2019, Hits reported that Republic had issued "Lover" to the US contemporary hit radio panels. (pictured) featured on a duet remix of "Lover".|alt=Shawn Mendes performing on guitar Republic Records released three alternate versions of "Lover". The first, a duet remix featuring the Canadian singer Shawn Mendes, was released on November 13, 2019. Mendes contributed verses written by himself. Media publications praised Mendes's verses and falsetto vocals but complained that they occasionally became cloying. The second, a remix subtitled "First Dance Remix", whose title refers to a newly-wed couple's opening dance at a wedding, was released on November 26, 2019. Featuring an orchestral arrangement used in Swift's performance at the 2019 American Music Awards, it received positive reviews for its ballroom atmosphere and production. The third, a live version subtitled "Live at Paris", recorded at Swift's City of Lover concert, was released on May 17, 2020. ==Music video==

The music video for "Lover", directed by Swift and Drew Kirsch, premiered on YouTube on August 22, 2019, hours before the album's release. Christian Owens, a dancer on Swift's 1989 and Reputation tours, stars as the male lead. The video was filmed in a set in Hollywood. According to Swift, its concept was inspired by the lyric "You two are dancing in a snow globe round and round" from the song "You Are in Love", a song about two best friends in love, taken from Swift's album 1989. The video begins with a child receiving a snow globe as a gift on Christmas Day, before focusing on the dollhouse inside the snow globe. Each features scenes of the couple's domestic life through the ups and downs of their love. For instance, the green room shows Swift's character playing drums, the yellow room features the couple playing board games, the blue room has a giant fishbowl in which the couple swim, and an attic is where they reminisce by watching home videos. At the end, the child who receives the snow globe is revealed to be the couple's daughter. The video includes easter eggs to many of Swift's other songs and albums, including each room in the dollhouse represents one previous Taylor Swift's album (her later albums, Folklore, Evermore and Midnights, were referenced into the dollhouse and its related landscape by Taylor after their release). Media outlets welcomed the video's romantic and dreamy atmosphere; Teen Vogue Mary Elizabeth Andriotis compared the cinematography to the films of Wes Anderson. ==Critical reception==

"Lover" was met with widespread critical acclaim and was seen as a large improvement compared to the lukewarm reception to the more upbeat singles from Lover that preceded it. Critics praised what they described as intimate lyrics and a romantic production. Many critics commended "Lover" as a testament to Swift's talents as a singer-songwriter, with Abby Aguirre of Vogue describing the song as a "romantic, haunting [...] singer-songwritery nugget". Slate critic Carl Wilson found the songwriting "replete with the little twists of phrase and zoomed-in details that make the best Swift songs so Swifty". The production was another point of praise. Zoladz said that "Lover", which she deemed the best single off the album, did not have commercial potential because it sounded like an outlier on radio, but for a good reason: "It's destined for more sacred spaces, like headphones, lonely car rides home after dropping someone off at an airport, and first dances at weddings." Wilson lauded the "musical self-assuredness" that makes "Lover" a compelling track, Critics have featured "Lover" highly on rankings of all songs in Swift's discography, including Vulture Nate Jones (2021), who ranked it 13th out of 179 songs; NME Hannah Mylrea (2020), 12th out of 161, and Paste Jane Song (2020), 6th out of 158. Rankings "Lover" featured on many publications' lists of the best songs of 2019. Cosmopolitan included it in the top 10, Elle placed it second among the "19 best love songs", and Idolator ranked it 63rd among the "75 best pop songs" of 2019. The track featured on unranked lists by Marie Claire and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Other publications that prominently ranked "Lover" in their year-end lists included Billboard (21st), Complex (35th), and Pitchfork (87th). In individual critics' lists, the song topped the list by David Farr from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and made it to the top 10 (unranked) by Wilson. Insider included "Lover" at number 104 in their list of the 113 best songs of the 2010s decade. ==Commercial performance==

In the United States, "Lover" debuted atop the Hot Digital Songs chart with 35,000 digital copies sold first-week, giving Swift her 18th chart topper and extending her record as the artist with the most Hot Digital Songs number-one songs. On the Billboard Hot 100 chart dated August 31, 2019, it debuted at number 19. After its music video was released, the song rose to number 10 on the next charting week, becoming Lover third top-10 single and Swift's 25th top-10 chart entry. It spent a total of 22 weeks on the Hot 100. On Billboard airplay charts, the single peaked at numbers 6 on Adult Pop Songs, 10 on Adult Contemporary, and 16 on Pop Songs. The Recording Industry Association of America, in October 2020, certified "Lover" double platinum for surpassing two million units based on sales and streaming. "Lover" peaked within the top 20 on singles charts of other English-speaking countries, reaching number three in both Australia and New Zealand, number seven in Canada, number nine in Ireland, and number 14 in the United Kingdom. The single has been certified double platinum by the British Phonographic Industry, triple platinum by Music Canada, four-times platinum by Recorded Music NZ, and eight-times platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association. In other markets, the song reached the top five on charts in Lebanon and Singapore and top 20 in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia; it has been certified diamond in Brazil and platinum in Austria, Denmark, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain. ==Awards and nominations==

At the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020, "Lover" was nominated for Song of the Year; it was Swift's first solo-written nomination and fourth overall after "You Belong with Me" in 2010, "Shake It Off" in 2015, and "Blank Space" in 2016. according to the Los Angeles Times, the Grammy loss prompted speculation on whether it was affected by Swift's dispute with the music executive Scooter Braun and her former label Big Machine, over the acquisition of the master recordings to her past albums. At the 2020 Nashville Songwriter Awards, organized by the Nashville Songwriters Association International, "Lover" was listed among "10 Songs I Wish I'd Written". The single was one of the "10 International Gold Songs" awarded at Hong Kong's RTHK International Pop Poll Awards, and the Shawn Mendes remix was nominated for Best Remix at the iHeartRadio Music Awards. In 2021, Broadcast Music, Inc. during the BMI Pop Awards honored "Lover" as one of the 50 most-performed songs throughout the year, based on airplay and streaming performance. The music video won Best Production Design in a Video at the MVPA Awards, and received nominations for Favorite International Video at the Philippines' Myx Music Awards and Best Music Video and Best Cinematography at Poland's Camerimage film festival. At the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards, "Lover" was nominated for Best Pop Video and Best Art Direction. Kurt Gefke, the video's production designer, received a nomination in the "Short Format" category at the ADG Excellence in Production Design Awards. ==Live performances and cover versions==

in 2023|alt=Swift singing onstage dressed in a sparkling bodysuit Swift performed "Lover" live on many occasions during promotion of the album in 2019. She first reprised it as part of a medley with "You Need to Calm Down" at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, on August 26; she played the song with a pink guitar and was surrounded with blue lights and a hovering moon. She sang "Lover" as part of a mini-concert held at BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge, which premiered on September 2. On September 9, she included it in the set list to her one-off City of Lover concert in Paris. In October, she performed the song on Saturday Night Live, where she sang a stripped-down, piano-led version, at a Tiny Desk Concert for NPR Music, and at the We Can Survive charity concert in Los Angeles. On November 10, Swift sang the track on the piano at the Alibaba Singles' Day Gala in Shanghai. At the 2019 American Music Awards on November 24, where Swift was honored as Artist of the Decade, she performed a medley of select singles, which included "Lover" with an orchestral arrangement. During the song, Swift played and sang on a piano, donning a pink cape with gold detailing, as Misty Copeland and Craig Hall performed a ballet. Variety Chris Willman selected Swift's medley as the night's most memorable highlight, opining that the lush, string-laden orchestral atmosphere and the ballet performance elevated the show to a high point. The orchestral arrangement was incorporated into the original track, released as the "First Dance Remix". and at iHeartRadio Z100's Jingle Ball in New York City. On December 14, Swift performed the song at the finale of BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing. Swift included "Lover" on the set list for the Eras Tour (2023–2024). Keith Urban covered "Lover" at his Washington State Fair concert on August 31, 2019. He showed his gratitude for "Lover", which he described as "so exquisitely written [...] gorgeously crafted" that made him appreciate the "art of making music", on social media, and after the performance said he wish he had composed the song himself. Urban's cover was nominated for Best Cover Song at the 2020 iHeartRadio Music Awards. ==Credits and personnel==

Album version • Taylor Swift – vocals, songwriter, producer • Jack Antonoff – producer, programmer, recording engineer, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, piano, keyboard, drums, percussion • Serban Ghenea – mixing • John Hanes – mix engineer • John Rooney – assistant recording engineer • Laura Sisk – recording engineer • Shawn Mendes – vocals, songwriter • Mike Gnocato – vocal engineer • Scott Harris – songwriter • George Seara – vocal engineer • Zubin Thakkar – vocal producer ==Charts==

Weekly charts Shawn Mendes remix Year-end charts ==Certifications==