"Exile" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift featuring the American band Bon Iver. It is from Swift's eighth studio album, Folklore (2020). "Exile" was written by Swift, Joe Alwyn (under the pseudonym William Bowery), and Bon Iver's frontman Justin Vernon, with production by Aaron Dessner and Alwyn. Republic Records released the song to US alternative radio on August 3, 2020.
Depicting an imaginary narrative of two estranged lovers having an unspoken dialogue, "Exile" is a minimal, but cinematic, indie-folk ballad with gospel, orchestral and chamber pop elements, combining Swift's honeyed vocals and Vernon's deep baritone into a melancholic duet propelled by a plodding piano, swirling strings, and soaring harmonies. Upon release, "Exile" garnered widespread critical acclaim, with emphasis on the duo's vocal chemistry, the agonizing lyricism, rich instrumentals and bleak atmosphere. Music critics picked it as a standout on Folklore and named it one of Swift's best collaborations to date, comparing it to her 2011 track "Safe & Sound". Several publications listed "Exile" as one of the best songs of 2020.
Commercially, "Exile" reached top-tier chart positions in various countries. It debuted at number six on the Billboard Hot 100, giving Swift her 28th top ten entry and eighteenth top ten debut in the United States. Elsewhere, it landed inside the top five in Australia, Ireland and New Zealand; top ten in Canada, Malaysia, Singapore and the United Kingdom; top 20 in Estonia, Israel and Scotland; and top 40 in Belgium, Portugal and Sweden. The song also became Bon Iver's highest-charting song and first top-ten song in all of the countries in which it charted. "Exile" was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards.
Background and release All tracks on Folklore, the eighth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, were conceived as imageries and visuals from Swift's deep subconscious, a result of her imagination "running wild" while isolating herself during the COVID-19 pandemic; "Exile" rose out of one such imagery— an exiled man, who is "walking the bluffs of a land that isn't his own, wondering how it all went so terribly, terribly wrong".
Upon release, the song featured a songwriting credit from William Bowery, who had no online presence, and thus, was presumed to be a pseudonym. Swift later revealed that Bowery was actually a pseudonym for her then boyfriend, the English actor Joe Alwyn, who wrote the song's piano melody and Bon Iver's first verse. "Exile" was then developed into a rough demo of a duet in which Swift was singing both the male and female parts, and she sent it to the American musician Aaron Dessner—one of two producers Swift picked for Folklore. Dessner developed a piano template of the song with Swift's rerecorded vocals. Swift and Dessner went through several candidates for the male partner on the duet, and Swift favored the voice of Bon Iver's frontman Justin Vernon, who is also, along with Dessner, a part of the American indie band Big Red Machine. Dessner forwarded the song to Vernon, who enjoyed the song, contributed his own lyrics and recorded his part.
The album was released on July 24, 2020. "Exile" impacted US Adult Alternative radio as a single on August 3. A clip of the song’s performance from Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions was released on YouTube on November 25. The song was also included in Swift's streaming compilations Folklore: The Escapism Chapter and Folklore: The Sleepless Nights Chapter, released on August 20 and August 23, 2020, respectively.
Composition and lyrics
"Exile" is a minimal, indie-folk ballad, with gospel, orchestral pop and chamber pop influences. Lyrically, it discusses two estranged lovers discussing their former relationship, in which one has not moved on (sung by Vernon), while the other one (Swift) has. Vernon delivers a "growling" vocal performance while "bemoaning a betrayed love", as Swift portrays the lover over "honeyed yet crisp" vocals. The duo's vocal range in the song spans between B1 to E5.The song is written in the key of G major and has a slow tempo of 76 beats per minute. The soaring instrumentals contain stirring strings and a plodding piano.
The song is a melancholic duet that fuses Swift's soft vocals with Vernon's low-register baritone, serving as an unarticulated conversation between two former lovers, setting forth their lack of communication. This thematic aspect reflects in the melody and lyrics of "Exile" as well: Melodically, the song is characterized by two voices in counterpoint—alternating while remaining as separate melodies. Similarly, the lyricism is structured after a call-and-response format, seeing Swift and Vernon singing over each other rather than fully listening and responding to each other, giving the song an argumentative tone with no fruitful end. The looped piano starts off "Exile", which then grows into a climax of chorused vocals, "glorious" harmonies and synths, mimicking the rising heat in the estranged lovers' conversation. "Exile" drew comparisons to Swift's older songs: "The Last Time" (2013) from her fourth studio album, Red, and "Safe & Sound" (2011) from The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond. Like the majority of Folklore, "Exile" also infuses a cinematic quality to its lyrics evoking visuals that allude to films, such as in the lines "I think I've seen this film before / and I didn't like the ending". The song starts with the male lover looking out at the female in a ballroom, where she is in the company of another man ("I can see you standing, honey/ With your arms around his body") as he ruminates on her leaving him alone with his feelings. In the verse following the first chorus, we see that the female lover is aware of his presence in the room, but has no feelings for him. The song crescendos into the lovers arguing about how the female offered so many cues as to how the male could do better, but he never noticed it. The song ultimately ends on a sad note, and both lovers decide that their relationship was one-sided, and the song concludes.
Critical reception
The song received widespread critical acclaim upon release. E! Onlines Billy Nilles described "Exile" as a "devastating dream" that "hits like a punch to the gut". Praising the song's passion and conversational lyricism, Clash writer Valerie Magan called the song a "scintillating" duet and "a wintry, tortured monster of a song" that best showcases the "sonic beauty" of Folklore. Writing for Consequence of Sound, Matt Melis named "Exile" the Song of the Week upon the album's release, and called the duo's pairing a "minor miracle in 2020". Reviewing for the same publication, Katie Moulton stated that "Exile" portrays a "dissolving" romance with two voices in counterpoint, and remarked the lyrics as "clever but restrained" with maturity, observing the song's emotions to be "not only high-pitched" but possessing "complex, shifting depths".
Christopher Roberts of Under the Radar included it in his list of the nine best songs of Folklores release week; he noted that Swift and Vernon's voices "mesh together well" and the latter sounds like Peter Gabriel on the track. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times dubbed "Exile" a "lovely, anguished duet" that acts a "stark and unsettling back and forth of recriminations", with lyrics channeling distance and skepticism. He complimented the song's climax especially, where Swift and Vernon sing over each other in a style of "hard-whiskey country, desperate R&B and black-box-theater dialogue", making the listeners feel "the full emotional corrosion". Caramanica described the piano in the song as stern and fatalistic, gonging like grandfather clocks.
Michael Sumsion of PopMatters proclaimed "Exile" an "obvious standout" on Folklore, defining it as a mournful examination of dissolution that juxtaposes Vernon's low bass register with Swift's "mid-range, conversational cadences and sharp-eyed observation to thrilling effect". He noted that the song begins as a "plaintive hush", growing into "a gleaming swarm of orchestral-gospel-flavored testifying that suggests the physical space of a cathedral", all whilst radiating a rich swell. Sumsion commented that "Exile" could easily fit on I, I, Bon Iver's fourth studio album. Los Angeles Times Jody Rosen deemed the song a "stormy duet" and "a tortured call-and-response between estranged lovers", adding that the song hits hard because of its essence of reality. Justin Curto of Vulture opined that Swift has been productive in the pandemic, creating her most contemplative album yet, with "Exile" as a prime result.
Terming it "a rich, textured track" of two "unlikely" voices together in "glorious" harmony, Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen of The Sydney Morning Herald found the song's mythology mesmerising, building "a whole world in under five minutes", and wrote that the effect erects a climax that dies down again, resulting in "a spectrum of sound and emotion" that resonates across Folklore. Uproxx writer Philip Cosores regarded Vernon sounding "like himself" a flex, as he avoids his characteristic falsetto present in Bon Iver's music. Bobby Olivier of Spin picked the track as "the grandest highlight" of Folklore, complimenting the production as a "sweeping, cinematic panorama". He further named it one of Swift's "most arresting" collaborations to date and a "worthy successor" to her 2011 collaboration, "Safe & Sound". NPR's Kim Ruehl thought that the song creates a "windswept sonic landscape", conveying "overlapping" sadness and sagacity, atypical of Swift's most radio hits. The Independent critic Ed Power lauded "Exile" as a Folklore highlight, boosted by "Swift and Vernon's stormy chemistry"; He underscored the former's "steely earnestness" and the latter's "enigmatic presence", and regarded the song the "millennial equivalent" of "Islands in the Stream" (1983) by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers.
Best-of lists Elle named the song as the second-best of 2020, while Men's Health included it in its ranking of best 25 songs of 2020. NME writer Hannah Mylrea placed the song at number 20 on her list ranking all 161 songs by Swift, praising it as one of Swift's most impressive collaborations. Laura Paterson, editor at Vogue, listed "Exile" as one of the 29 best songs of 2020, and called it "the melancholic duo that 2020 deserved", merging "an angsty, sing-your-guts-out Taylor anthem" with "mid-2000s nostalgia for the folksy sounds of Bon Iver". Surprised by a Swift-Vernon duet, NBHAP named the song the eleventh best of 2020, and welcomed Vernon's return to his "pure and deep voice". Slant named "Exile" as the fourth-best song of 2020. Complex critic Aia Adriano placed "Exile" at number 4 on her list ranking the best songs of 2020. In August 2022, Billboard ranked all of Swift's 29 collaborations with other artists, placing "Exile" first.
Commercial performance