Photo: Jean Baptiste Lacroix/AFP via Getty Images
No one loves a sensitive female indie-folk singer-songwriter quite like Paul Mescal. The Oscar-nominated actor famously fanboyed his way into the heart of Phoebe Bridgers, to whom he was briefly engaged. Now he’s dating Gracie Abrams, another Taylor Swift tour opener who happens to be somewhat of a Phoebe disciple. (Mescal’s younger sister, Nell, is also a rising folk musician.) So it was only time that he’d pick up the pen himself.
Mescal is listed as a co-writer on Abrams’s song “Imaginary Friend,” off her new album, Daughter From Hell. The song is about feeling the absence of a past lover: “I talk to you, you don’t talk back,” Abrams sings. “’Cause you’re a figment of my imagination / Man, I fucking hate it.” It’s not a happy song — of course it’s not! It’s by two people whose idea of a romantic time is a Mitski concert.
Abrams teased the collaboration on the New York Times’ Popcast podcast. She said that she and Mescal didn’t set out to write together. She just noticed that she didn’t have any “strummers” on her album, so she and Mescal ended up “fucking around” and “trading lines” back and forth. Now his contributions have been immortalized forever. It’s a boyfriend privilege that he shares with his friend Joe Alwyn, who co-wrote several songs on Swift’s folklore and evermore under the pseudonym William Bowery. Congrats to Paul!
Stay in touch.
The latest in style, self, culture, and power in your inbox.
Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice
Related