"Safe & Sound" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Single by Taylor Swift featuring The Civil Wars | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
from the album The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Released | December 26, 2011 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Format | Digital download | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Length | 4:01 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Label | Big Machine | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Writer(s) |
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Producer(s) | T-Bone Burnett | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Taylor Swift singles chronology | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Safe & Sound" is a song by American recording artist Taylor Swift and alternative country duo The Civil Wars, taken from The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond, the official soundtrack for the 2012 film The Hunger Games. The artists co-wrote the track with its producer, T-Bone Burnett; the song was written at Burnett's house within two hours.
The song was released to iTunes in the US December 26, 2011, and was later added to the BBC Radio 1 playlist. The song was critically lauded, with critics praising Swift's breathy vocals, the simplicity of the music, and its lyrics, some citing it as a welcome return to form for Swift.
"Safe & Sound" was written by Taylor Swift, Joy Williams, John Paul White, and T-Bone Burnett. In summer 2011, Lionsgate required Burnett to record songs for The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond, and he subsequently corralled a range of artists, including Swift, Maroon 5, The Civil Wars, and Arcade Fire. On a fall night in 2011, Burnett and the production team, as well as Swift and The Civil Wars, came to Burnett's house in Los Angeles to write the lyrics. After two hours, the song was finished. Swift further elaborated, "The Civil Wars had a show that night in L.A., so they raced right over to T Bone's house. There's so many things he could've done production-wise to make that song bigger sonically than it is, but I think that would have possibly been a mistake. For him to have left the song as a lullaby is brilliant."
On December 22, 2011, Swift posted a portion of the song's lyrics via her Twitter account and said that "Something I’ve been [very] excited about for a [very] long time is going to be happening very soon." Four days later, the song was released digitally on iTunes Store.