Ed Sheeran ended the speculation over his upcoming remix of “The Joker and the Queen” featuring his “good friend” Taylor Swift on Wednesday morning (Feb. 9) when he confirmed that the dynamic duo will drop the track on Friday (Feb. 11).
“‘The Joker and the Queen’ featuring my good friend @taylorswift13 is out this Friday,” Sheeran tweeted after offering up a chill performance of the song at Tuesday night’s 2022 Brit Awards. During a red carpet interview with LADbible ahead of the Brits, Sheeran shared that a new song “comes out Friday and it’s with Taylor Swift.”
Sheeran teased the remix in the tweet with a 30-second snippet of the gentle ballad featuring the pair’s vocals seamlessly intertwined over weepy strings along with an animation of a playing card on which Swift is, of course, the queen and Ed plays the jester-hat-wearing joker.
The original, sans Swift, appears on Sheeran’s fourth studio album,=, which topped the Billboard 200 albums chart dated Nov. 13. According to Twitter fan theories, there have been a series of hints that the two might be up to something with the track — such as Taylor Swift patch on the back of Sheeran’s jacket in his “Overpass Graffiti” video, and the equal sign Swift carved into the cake in her “I Bet You Think About Me” video.
The latest hint came on Saturday (Feb. 5), when eagle-eyed fans noticed the song credits on YouTube for Sheeran’s “The Joker and the Queen” official lyric video showed the words “feat. Taylor Swift.” It would be the latest collab between the old friends, who’ve previously teamed up on three songs: “Everything Has Changed” on Red, “End Game” on Reputation and “Run,” a vault track on Red (Taylor’s Version).
Check out Ed’s tweet below.
The Joker And The Queen featuring my good friend @taylorswift13 is out this Friday. Link in bio to pre-order or pre-save it xhttps://t.co/1WEEHn3okc
Repost @ teddysphotos on Instagram pic.twitter.com/8kIYNSS7Pw
— Ed Sheeran HQ (@edsheeran) February 9, 2022
