Producer Aaron Dessner is setting the record straight about viral speculation that Gracie Abrams’ new song “Death Wish” was inspired by the singer’s friendship with Taylor Swift.
“Definitely not. It was written at a time when [Gracie] was writing about a friend’s ex being in a bad relationship,” Dessner, 50, told Billboard in an interview published Wednesday, July 22. “It was kind of about that person, I think. I wouldn’t even actually know who that person was.”
Dessner cowrote and coproduced Abrams’ new album, Daughter From Hell, which features the track “Death Wish.”
“My love, you love your time machine / Your power trips and diamond rings / The walls you built on teenage dreams,” Abrams, 26, sings. “The well you dug for sinking things / Your words to kill are evergreen / So you must not feel anything at all.”
She adds in one verse, “Aside from those few girls you keep around / How will it end? How long will you give me? / ‘Til you twist the knife with a smile while you kill me? / And then you ask me to dance if there’s someone around / You don’t look the same when I look at you now.”
While Abrams has not publicly shared her lyrical inspiration, fans on social media questioned whether Swift, 36, was in fact her pal’s muse. The two musicians have been close since 2022, one year before Abrams opened for the Grammy winner’s Eras Tour.
“It’s a real master class to watch her do what she does,” Abrams said on a 2024 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon of going on the road with Swift. “I felt like I was at college for this job. I watched every single one of her shows that I was lucky enough to open. I watched from every place possible in each stadium, just trying to pick up on how she’s able to do what she does.”
The two women later teamed up for “Us.” from Abrams’ The Secret of Us record, which even scored a Grammy nomination at the 2025 ceremony. Abrams was even among the guests at Swift’s star-studded wedding to Travis Kelce earlier this month.
As for their professional lives, Abrams and Swift both have working relationships with Dessner.
“Gracie and I have worked together for more than six years now, and you kind of grow together, and there’s a lot of experience that has nothing to do with making songs,” Dessner recalled to Billboard. “She’s very aware of my personal life, and I’m of course aware of hers — she’s close with my kids, for example.”
Due to his close friendship with Abrams, Dessner believes he’d be privy to her musical inspirations on songs like “Death Wish.”
“I think, naturally, if she writes something, I’ll know. But we don’t really talk about it,” he quipped. “It’s weird. It’s kind of unsaid. I would say the same thing for other people I’ve worked with. [I’m] giving feedback at times, lyrically, but I tend to … you don’t want to be like, ‘Well, you’re talking about this, right?’ It’s more mysterious not to.”
