Taylor Swift to GMA on working with Jack Antonoff on ‘I Knew It, I Knew You’:
“I called Jack Antonoff who is one of my best friends, I know that he is not only as big a Randy Newman fan as I am but also a ‘Toy Story’ kid and we talk about ‘Toy Story’ all the time and how that really shaped our childhood […] I called him up and I just really quickly blurted out like, 'I got to see the new Toy Story, I have to tell you all about the film, but we need to write this song. We need to write this song.”
“It was such a frenetic form of excitement that I just blathered out, like, 'We have to write this song.'”
Lauryn Hill explains why she never released a sophomore album after ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’:
“When you're inspired and desire to be principled, what doesn't get talked about enough is the drain... nor the challenge to find safety so that you can create with integrity. Most see opportunity as dollars only and often exclude the 'sense. The Score nor the Miseducation were made because we were 'allowed' to represent what we did, we fought for every inch. Wild success can cause greed that begins to denegrate the art for the money. We're people living through all this. These conversations should allow for more nuance. Artists go through phases, creativity requires expression, exploration and experimentation. There were people who hated the Unplugged album and yet some today swear by its significance. I was like a Harriet Tubman figure in some respects running to speak difficult truths to power before certain forces tried to close those doors. If it was so easy to do, where is that expression now on the world stage? Systems fear what they can't control. Creativity is most potent when it's free. If I did nothing else, I introduced standards and possibilities to a generation that didn't know they could operate on that level before then. I am often doing things outside the support of the system before people can even realize what I've done. Another artist who values inspiration then recognizes IT'S value and re-presents it to an audience then ready to receive it.”