In two very different ways, Taylor Swift and Pattie Boyd have left their mark indelibly on popular music. While Swift is, of course, the biggest pop star of her generation, Boyd is an all-time great muse: She was married to George Harrison and then Eric Clapton, and she inspired The Beatles’ “Something” as well as Clapton’s hits “Layla” and “Wonderful Tonight.” Swift recently interviewed Boyd for Harper’s Bazaar, which yielded a fascinating conversation about songwriting, Clapton, The Beatles, and more.
In the piece, Swift tells Boyd about the “mystical, magical moments” during songwriting when a song just pops into your head:
“There are definitely moments when it’s like this cloud of an idea comes and just lands in front of your face, and you reach up and grab it. A lot of songwriting is things you learn, structure, and cultivating that skill, and knowing how to craft a song. But there are mystical, magical moments, inexplicable moments when an idea that is fully formed just pops into your head. And that’s the purest part of my job. It can get complicated on every other level, but the songwriting is still the same uncomplicated process it was when I was 12 years old writing songs in my room.”
Boyd also had some advice for Swift, reminding her that there are no constants in the world:
“You have to remember that nothing remains the same. It’s always going to change. The whole world keeps changing, we keep changing, things in our lives keep changing. Nothing remains the same. If you’re happy or you’re sad, it’s not going to last forever. You just have to keep remembering that.”
Read the full conversation here.
