The singer-songwriter talks about his new song “Hero” — and how an unexpected mention on Tortured Poet’s Department gave him the courage to release it.

Charlie Puth probably wouldn’t be releasing his new song “Hero” if it wasn’t for Taylor Swift.

Puth was in the middle of having lunch one day last month when a friend who’d heard a leak of Swift’s Tortured Poets Department called to say that she had mentioned Puth in one of the songs. Puth didn’t believe him. “My brain immediately went to ‘Oh, like in an interview or something. That’s cool. I love Taylor Swift,’” he recounts to Rolling Stone. Then, he thought, maybe the song and the reported shout-out — “You smokеd, then ate seven bars of chocolate/We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist” — were AI-generated? “I’m going to wake up tomorrow and it was just a big joke that someone was playing on me because someone thinks I shouldn’t be a bigger artist, so get the biggest artist since the Beatles to say that I should be a bigger artist. Ha ha ha,” he thought.

Then the album came out. Puth was brushing his teeth before bed when he pressed play on the title track (“The song’s in C major,” he notes in true Puth fashion). He was shook. “My first thought was like, ‘Wow. She said my name.’ She kind of said it like P-O-O-T-H,” he says. “And I just cried, dude.”

”It was surreal because it’s never good to look back, but I feel like I could have done things a little differently in the past, but it’s all meant to happen now,” he adds.

Swift’s shout-out and that stamp of approval gave Puth the push to drop “Hero,” a song that goes against his tendencies to overproduce his tracks and taps into the sort of direct-to-paper songwriting that Swift does to perfection.

Here’s what Puth has to say about his favorite Swift lyric, working with Matty Healy, and who he thinks should be a bigger artist.

Tell me about “Hero.”Just because all my stuff usually has so many fucking layers, I’m like, “Is this song too simple?” There’s three sounds. I recorded this guitar with a fucking iPhone. It’s the first time that’s happened to me where I didn’t feel the need to add more. I’m stuck to it. I just found this loop off fucking Reddit. And that’s it. It’s a first for me. Everything is usually tuning all the vocals and making sure everything sounds perfect. I want everything to feel like there’s a band in there, and there’s someone just hitting record.

What’s the song about?When I write songs, it’s about a couple of people in one. I feel like the song is just seeing the deterioration of someone you were really close to. You see them just falling apart in front of you, making all these bad decisions. And then you try and reach out to them and lend a hand to them and they’re just in complete denial. But the music’s going to be very delicate and sweet. But it was a really tough situation. The dichotomy was there.

What was the guitar inspired by?I was very influenced by boygenius and Maggie Rogers. Almost like a careless delivery a little bit and not so in your face. I’m always interested in doing things that I’ve never explored before.

How many layers would normally be on a Charlie Puth song?Oh, probably 140. I think I was braggadocious and I’m very appreciative of those songs, too, but it’s just, I didn’t want it to be about “How many sounds can you find in this production?” I wanted my listeners to listen to the lyrics and the story and not have them be so broad. Kind of like how Taylor Swift does in her music, too. That’s obviously what inspired me to put this out.

Is that scary?Very, very scary. I’d say if it weren’t for Taylor and her mentioning me, I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to put this out, which is a big statement. I know.

Did you have any clue that Swift was going to shout you out?No idea. I was in complete denial, too, because there was no way this could be a thing. It’s so random. But then again, I’m listening to the song and I’m like, “It’s not random. It’s probably about a real conversation she had with somebody.” And I thought to myself, “Why don’t I get hyper specific in my lyrics ever? Because I’m so concerned about a song being a hit? No.” I feel like I owe it to myself to make a song where people really know the true backstory of something. But I’m always like, “They’re going to get bored. There’s too many words.” This song wouldn’t have come out without her stamp of approval.

Fans were saying that they think it was a conversation with Matty Healy, because he’s talked about you before and the chocolate-bar line is a reference to “Chocolate.”If that’s true, then that’s smart because he has a song called “Chocolate.” Oh, wait. Why has he never mentioned this to me before? I’ve written a couple of songs with him. I don’t think anything will come out from it, but I like his music a lot, too. I love his band. I remember hearing “Chocolate” for the first time at DigiTour in 2014, and somebody did it as a cover.

Have you talked to Taylor yet?No. I wrote her a note, and I was just like, “This means more, and I will take this newfound courage to put this new body of work out.” Again, I was working on it already, but I was just unsure and it’s cool to get a stamp of approval from an artist that you have idolized for such a long time and still do.

What’s your favorite Taylor Swift song?The 10-minute version of “All Too Well.” It’s like watching a really good movie. Like Lord of the Rings could be two and a half hours long, but it feels like it just goes by like that. I could listen to that song a hundred times. Another reason why it’s my favorite song is because it’s so simple.

Have you met Taylor before?I met her backstage at one of those Jingle Ball shows, but that was a very long time ago. She might not even remember. She seems to be traveling. I want to know her travel tips because I always get so sick on airplanes, and she just keeps going and going and doesn’t seem to have a problem.

Anything you want to tell her?I’m just very thankful. I’m a broken record, but I’m very thankful for her shout-out because I really don’t know if I would’ve had the courage to put a song like this out. And all I needed was just that little “You’re good, put it out” reminder. And I’m very excited for people to hear this kind of new side of me.

Do you think you should be a bigger artist?I think I should be. But to me, a bigger artist, I get to inspire more of my fans and people around the world to pick up an instrument. I’d love to be a bigger artist to inspire other people to be bigger artists.

If you were replacing the Charlie Puth lyric, who do you think should be a bigger artist?Well, Mel, Melanie Martinez, but she’s a huge artist. I think more people can know about her. I think Mk.Gee could be a bigger artist.

You mentioned AI. What do you think about it?I think AI is good as a collaborative tool. There’s a lot of things that need to be figured out. It’s like no man’s land right now. It’s like typing in a prompt like “soft piano ballad with chords played like Bill Evans,” and it gives you back something kind of messed up and janky, but your human brain will be like, “Oh, I’ll take this, flip it upside down, tear it inside out. And it’s a new idea that I wouldn’t have thought of on my own.” AI for collaborative purposes is pretty cool to me.

So what’s the approach to your upcoming album?My new approach is for things to not be so on the grid in ProTools. And I’m producing it in a way where I just hit record, do a couple of takes with the band, and then I don’t write any lyrics down. I just sing the first thing that comes to mind when I’m writing the record and everything is just a little bit more free-flowing. No Auto-Tune or anything like that. It’s like I’m in my almond-mom era. But it’s definitely not that. It’s lyrically specifically, it’s about true things that happened to me that I’m not broadening out. I’m just saying the exact thing that’s in my brain. This happened exactly how it happened, and this is the color shirt that I was wearing and this is what I was eating. I’m putting that into the verse, kind of like what Taylor does in her music.

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