The title track on Taylor Swift’s most recent album is a definite highlight: “Lover,” co-produced by Bleachers’ Jack Antonoff, is both a callback to her country roots and a modern folksy love song in its own right. How to make the captivating strain even better? Add a corresponding vocal from fellow pop sensation Shawn Mendes and make it a duet; the remix version was just released yesterday.
“Lover” marks the first collaboration for the “Shake It Off” and “Stitches” singers. Mendes takes the second verse of the ode to domestic bliss, adding some new lyrics, according to E! (“We could light a bunch of candles and dance around the kitchen, baby/ Pictures of when we were young would hang on the walls”). His chiming in on the chorus somehow makes the song even more romantic, with his deeper vocals melding seamlessly with Swift’s for a combo that so effortlessly pushes “Lover” to the next level, you wonder why it wasn’t the first version out. Check it out below, and let’s all leave the Christmas lights up until January this year.