The Story of Taylor Swift’s Song With Sugarland, ‘Babe’
The story of Taylor Swift's song With Sugarland, "Babe," is a bit of a fairytale. Swift will be adding a little oomph to Sugarland's upcoming new album, Bigger, in the form of the song "Babe" — a tune she co-wrote with Train's Pat Monahan.
It seems that this particular song was destined to have a home with the country duo for their comeback, as Swift herself approached Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush to gauge their interest in the composition.
"She reached out; we have obviously known each other for many years," Nettles told PopCulture backstage at the 2018 ACM Awards. "And she was excited we were getting back together and reached out, and said, 'Hey, I have a song.'"
Recognizing that Swift doesn't let go of her babies too often — "That is a short list, ladies and gentleman, of people to whom she has said, 'Hey, I have a song. Wanna sing it?'" quipped Nettles — the duo of course said yes.
The song is the only one on the new record that Sugarland didn't write themselves. "We've never really put a song by anybody else on any of our records, so we weren't really used to sorting through that, and we didn't want to mess it up," notes Bush. "So we didn't tell anybody about it, until we got finished."
Just to make things even better, Swift will also be adding backing vocals to the song. She didn't reveal to Nettles and Bush who the song was about, however — we'll just have to figure that out on our own.
"I'm so happy that it gets its own life," Swift tells fans of "Babe" via an Instagram video. "I'm so happy that Sugarland wanted to record it, and has done such a great job with it."
Bigger, out June 8, marks Sugarland's sixth studio album, and it's a glorious return, due to the fact their last album was 2010's The Incredible Machine. Bush and Nettles put the duo on hiatus in 2012 and have pursued solo projects since.
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