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Taylor Swift 'Renegade': Fans hail singer as she teams up with Big Red Machine

'I was ushered into his world of free-flowing creativity where you don’t overthink, you just make music,' Taylor Swift said about the collaboration

Indie rock band Big Red Machine just unveiled the music video for their new single 'Renegade', for which they have teamed up with singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. The song has already been dubbed a masterpiece for its hauntingly beautiful lyrics and soulful composition. Swift's vocals have added a new dimension to the song, whose lyrics have been penned by Big Red Machine's Aaron Dessner and Taylor Swift together. The song was produced by Dessner and his bandmate Justin Vernon. 

Swift is also set to appear in another music video with the Big Red Machine duo for the album 'How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?', which is scheduled to release on August 27, 2021. According to Pitchfork, 'Renegade' was recorded in Los Angeles the very week Swift and Dessner were awarded the Grammy for Album of the Year. Directed by Michael Brown, the video captures a psychedelic grunge aesthetic, with the lyrics appearing in a handwritten format. It also shows Swift journaling the lyrics onto the pages of a diary.

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"When @Aaron_Dessner came into my life, I was ushered into his world of free-flowing creativity where you don’t overthink, you just make music. A song we wrote for his project @BRMadjv (which also features Justin Vernon ) is out! It’s called Renegade," Taylor Swift tweeted, announcing the release of the song.

Big Red Machine also posted about the release tweeting, "Listen to Renegade (feat. @taylorswift13) and watch the video directed by Michael Brown at https://bigredmachine.jagjag.co/renegade. From our new album “How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?” out August 27 on @37d03d/ @jagjaguwar."

'Everything I needed today'

Aaron Dessner released a statement about the song where he said: “While we were making folklore and evermore last year, Taylor and I sometimes talked about experimenting and writing songs together some day for Big Red Machine. Making music with your friends just to make it—that's how Big Red Machine started and has grown—and that’s how Renegade came about too. This song was something we wrote after we finished evermore and it dawned on us that this was a BRM song. Taylor’s words hit me so hard when I heard her first voice memo and still do, every time. Justin lifted the song further into the heavens, and my brother [Bryce Dessner]’s strings and drummer Jason Treuting add so much. The feeling and sound of this song feel very much at the heart of How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last? I'm so grateful to Taylor for continuing to share her incredible talent with me and that we are still finding excuses to make music together.”

Listeners poured in their love for the song on social media, as many of them quoted lyrics from the song in tweets. One fan wrote, "#Renegade listening party all day I have listened to it so many times aaaAaHHH and I can’t stop listening it’s too perfect."

"I had an awful day yesterday… this so everything I needed today #Renegade," tweeted another fan. 

A third fan said, "Okay so #Renegade is really f**king beautiful Thanks @taylorswift13 once again for outdoing yourself. keep doing that for evermore… pretty please."

An emotional fourth fan tweeted, "How is it that @taylorswift13 ALWAYS manages to put out a song about EXACTLY what I'm going through? #Renegade goosebumps Thank you @aaron_dessner & @taylorswift13 for this lyrically accurate masterpiece."