Jack Antonoff is reflecting on his year and finding that it’s treated him pretty well. A forthcoming Bleachers album, six Grammy nominations with one that would give him his third Producer of the Year award, and a handful of creative friends who challenge each other through their music: Lana Del Rey, Matty Healy, and Taylor Swift.
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In a recent interview with Vulture, Antonoff spoke about a myriad of topics, including the types of lyrics that punch him in the gut and leave him breathless. He first mentioned The 1975 lyric “I’m sorry if you’re living and you’re 17” from the self-titled song “The 1975” off of Being Funny in a Foreign Language.
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“I’m not easily shocked, but the stuff that shocks or surprises me is often the most beautifully written stuff,” said Antonoff. “A lot of [Matty Healy’s] funnier, snarkier stuff that’s maybe more designed to shock, that’s one corner, but the stuff that really knocks me off my feet is when someone says something that just feels like a gut punch.”
Jack Antonoff on Lyrics That Surprise Him
Antonoff then spoke about that specific line, revealing that it “cuts me so much that I pushed it to become a repetitive thing.” He continued, “It’s not even about speaking to people that age — ‘I’m sorry if you’re living and you’re 17’ just feels so much like the experience of this moment. The one thing everyone agrees on is this grand failure of generations to come. When we were making that album, it was a pretty polarizing time in general, and that line just felt like a relief of a fact.”
Additionally, he spoke about the Taylor Swift lyric that cuts him to the bone on the song “You’re On Your Own, Kid” from Midnights. “The stuff that shocks me the most is someone’s vulnerability in a song,” he said. “The end of ‘You’re on Your Own, Kid’ is one of those moments for me.”
The end of that song goes, ‘Cause there were pages turned and bridges burned / Everything you lose is a step you take. Antonoff reflected, “I remember, she wrote that right in front of me and then we put it down, and I was completely punched in the gut. Beautiful.”
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