“I had too much going on”: Jazz musician Anomalie on his reworked version of Taylor Swift’s Lavender Haze

Given her level of uniquity, it almost comes as a surprise when you discover that someone hasn’t heard a particular Taylor Swift song, but when Pianote played Montreal-based jazz musician Anomalie (AKA Nicolas Dupuis) the vocals and drums from Lavender Haze, the opening track from her 2022 album, Midnights, he was completely in the dark.

The good news that this meant that the song fited the bill as one that Pianote could ask Anomalie to listen to and then create his own keyboard parts for - not so easy when all you have is a melody and a rhythm track to work from.

Getting down to business, Anomalie tries a variety of different things, some busier than others, before signalling that he’s ready to try and do a complete run-through of the song.

Without giving too much away, we can tell you that this ends up being rather different, harmonically, to the Jack Antonoff-produced original, and certainly more musically complex.

And then the big reveal: Anomalie gets to hear the song as it was originally recorded and find out who’s singing it.

“I had too much going on,” reflects Anomalie, as he realises that Lavender Haze is actually just three chords repeated for the entire track. He isn’t at all sniffy about this, though - “I love the whole ambience,” he says.

In fact, he’s happy to make his pitch to work with Taylor Swift in the future: “If we do make a song together at some point, what I would do would be a lot more structured than what just happened. Do not worry.”