Taylor Swift’s Upcoming ‘Lover’ Album Includes a Collaboration With the Dixie Chicks

Taylor Swift‘s seventh studio album, Lover, will be released on Friday, and the star unveiled the track list for the highly-anticipated project on Aug. 16. In doing so, she confirmed one of many fan theories about the album, with the listing officially including a collaboration between Swift and the Dixie Chicks.

The song is called “Soon You’ll Get Better” and is the 12th track on the project, which features 18 songs overall.

Swift had previously hinted at a collaboration with the country trio in her cover photo for a May issue of Entertainment Weekly in which she sported a Dixie Chicks button on her jacket and in the video for the album’s lead single, “ME!,” which featured a portrait of the group hanging on the wall.

The only other collaboration on the album comes from “ME!,” which featured Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco.

“The Dixie Chicks were making such interesting music and doing it in such an unapologetically feminine, imaginative way,” Swift told EW. “I was very inspired by the album Fly and the aesthetics, because it was very clear they had really put a lot into the artwork. And so it got my brain thinking bigger in terms of, you know, you make an album, but then you can choose an entire look and color palette and aesthetic and symbolism and imagery and backstories — that you can really make an album even more of an experience if you so choose.”

Swift has long been a fan of the Dixie Chicks, previously sharing that the first song she ever learned to play on the guitar was the group’s massive hit “Cowboy Take Me Away.” During her 1989 World Tour, she invited lead singer Natalie Maines onstage during one of her shows to sing the Chicks’ hit “Goodbye Earl.”

Along with being musical superstars, Swift and the Chicks also share the fact that they have experienced intense public backlash, which the trio faced in 2003 after Maines criticized then-president George W. Bush. The band’s music was instantly pulled from numerous radio stations and the women were essentially made pariahs in the country music industry. They released their most recent studio album, Taking the Long Way, in 2006 and are currently working on their first original album in 13 years.

Meanwhile, Swift’s reputation took a hit in the summer of 2016 when Kim Kardashian released audio of a phone call between Swift and Kanye West in which the pair discussed West’s song “Famous.” Based on this shared experience, it’s possible that “Soon You’ll Get Better” could be about overcoming a struggle, but fans will have to wait until Friday to find out for sure.

Photo Credit: Getty / Christopher Polk/TAS