Remember back in July when Taylor Swift released her eighth studio album, "folklore" (opens in new tab), and Swiffies immediately began speculating about the possible involvement of boyfriend Joe Alwyn (opens in new tab)? ? If not, let's review: when Swift announced the surprise release of the album, she listed the artists with whom she had collaborated and called them "musical heroes." Those artists were Aaron Dessner of The National, Bon Iver, William Bowery, and Jack Antonoff of Bleachers. Unlike the other artists, William Bowery had no discography of note, and fans soon began to suspect that the name was a pseudonym for Alwyn.

Now, Swift has tested that theory with his new Disney+ release, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, which tells the story of the album's creation and includes an acoustic version. There was a lot of discussion about William Bowery and who he was. William Bowery is Joe. Alwyn confirmed that he co-wrote "betty" and "exile" with Swift.

Swift and Alwyn's songwriting partnership began with "betty," she recalled. I was like, "Hey, this might be really weird and we might hate this (but) since we're isolated and nothing else is happening, can we try to write this song together?" And it was like, "You know what? And things, obviously, worked out pretty well.

"I thought it was a really good song from a masculine point of view," Swift said, "and it seemed like an apology." She added, "I've written a lot of songs from a female perspective that want men to apologize, so I decided to make it from the perspective of a teenage boy apologizing after losing the love of his life because of something stupid he did.

"exile," featuring Bon Iver, benefited greatly from Alwyn's piano skills, Swift said. He said, "Joe plays the piano beautifully, and he's always just playing, making something up, just creating. And 'exile' was crazy because Joe wrote all the piano parts."

"He sang the whole first verse and I was mesmerized and I asked him if I could keep writing this song. He had a really low voice and it sounded really good when he sang there." Apparently, it seems safe to assume that "William Bowery" is a new cipher deciphered by the Swiftees!