Florence Welch is looking back on working alongside Taylor Swift.
The Florence + the Machine leader and Swift co-wrote the song “Florida!!!,” which appears on the pop superstar’s new double album, The Tortured Poets Department. In an interview with British Vogue, published Thursday (April 25), Welch reflects on her collaboration with Swift.
“I almost didn’t think of the scale of it,” Welch told the publication. “There’s the sort of bigness of [Taylor Swift the phenomenon], and then there’s the Taylor I spend time with in the studio, who is just the sweetest and most down to earth.”
The Florence + the Machine singer said that Swift came to her with “a concept and a story” for the song, which is “my favorite way to start songwriting.” She added, “We had such a fun time. And then when it came out I was like, ‘Oh, s—!’”
Swift previously explained the narrative that inspired “Florida!!!” during an interview with iHeartRadio.
“‘Florida!!!’ is a song I wrote with Florence and the Machine, and I think I was coming up with this idea of like, what happens when your life doesn’t fit, or your choices you’ve made catch up to you,” Swift said.
She added that she’s a fan of Dateline and noticed how “people have these crimes that they commit, where do they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida.”
The Tortured Poets Department is Swift’s eleventh studio album and her her first release of new music since 2022’s Grammy-winning Midnights. The 31-track double album also features a collaboration with Post Malone, as well as writing and production contributions from Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner.
Although The Tortured Poets Department is Swift’s first album of new music since Midnights, she has steadily pumped out her re-recorded Taylor’s Version albums in the interim. In between the two aforementioned albums, Swift topped the Billboard 200 with both Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version), the latter of which became the star’s record-extending sixth album to debut with over one million pure sales in its first week.