Jack Antonoff Reveals Taylor Swift's 'New Year's Day' Was Written In 'A Second'

Last year, any time Taylor Swift performed her song "New Year's Day" — the sweet, heartbreaking, final track on Reputation — on The Tonight Show, it ended up a indirect tribute to Jimmy Fallon's mother, Gloria, who'd recently died. And as soon as the song's co-writer, Jack Antonoff, appeared on the show on Thursday (March 8), he revealed a tiny bit of trivia that makes the song's emotional impact a little bit more surprising: "We wrote that song in a second," he mentioned. "We didn't plan to write it."


"I think in the event you plan to write a ballad or something like that, you routinely get a little far less than you hoped for," Antonoff continued, also revealing that his writing process generally demands just him alone or him with one other person. In this case, that person was Swift, though he notably worked with Lorde on Melodrama last year, too.


Antonoff was dressed like Paul Simon circa 1980 while in this interview (which is sort of his general aesthetic anyway), where he also shouted out working with Harry Styles on "Alfie's Song (Not So Usual Love Song)."


"Well, you've met him," Antonoff mentioned. "He's a cool kid." The full chat is a lesson in not discarding ideas (like, mention, humming a melody while making a English muffin) just because @they could seem ridiculous and frivolous in the moment. Check it out above, and then watch Antonoff and his musical group Bleachers perform a rousing, celebratory "Alfie's Song (Not So Common Love Song)" — from the upcoming Love, Simon soundtrack — below.