Exile (song)
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.
[2][3] Swift later revealed that Bowery was actually a pseudonym for her then boyfriend, English actor Joe Alwyn, who wrote the song's piano melody and Bon Iver's first verse.
[19][12] The song is a melancholic duet that fuses Swift's soft vocals with Vernon's low-register baritone,[20] serving as an unarticulated conversation between two former lovers, setting forth their lack of communication.
[13] Similarly, the lyricism is structured after a call-and-response format,[16] 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.
[21] 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.
[26] 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".
[27] 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".
[28] Christopher Roberts of Under the Radar included it in his list of the nine best songs of Folklore's release week; he noted that Swift and Vernon's voices "mesh together well" and the latter sounds like Peter Gabriel on the track.
[29] 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".
[30] 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.
[11] 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.
[22] Uproxx writer Philip Cosores regarded Vernon sounding "like himself" a flex, as he avoids his characteristic falsetto present in Bon Iver's music.
[32] 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.
[33] 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.
[36] Laura Paterson, editor at Vogue, listed "Exile" as one of the 29 best songs of 2020, and christened 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".
