Taylor Swift split fans when she unveiled her slowed-down, banjo-heavy cover of Earth, Wind And Fire’s disco hit ‘September’ last month, and it seems one of the song’s writers was far from impressed with her efforts. 

Songwriter Allee Willis gave Simon Cowell a run for his money as she revealed how she really felt about it during a live Q&A in the US last week.

Alle branded the acoustic cover – recorded for Taylor’s recent ‘Spotify Singles’ collection – “somewhat boring”, noting it was “as lethargic as a drunk turtle dozing under a sunflower after ingesting a bottle of Valium”. 

Recalling when she first heard it, Allee told the audience (via NME): “On the same day things happened in Syria, the FBI broke into Michael Cohen’s office… the worst thing that happened as far as the internet was concerned – on this 449th day of all of our brains feeling like they’ve been hurled back and forth like squash balls – the top-trending topic on Twitter was the Taylor Swift cut of ‘September’.

“I didn’t really think she did a horrible job. Yes, I felt it was as lethargic as a drunk turtle dozing under a sunflower after ingesting a bottle of Valium, and I thought it had all the build of a one-story motel, but, I mean, the girl didn’t kill anybody. She didn’t run over your foot.

“She just cut a very calm and somewhat boring take of one of the peppiest, happiest, most popular songs in history.”

Allee added: “I’m honoured you’d choose to do my song and that it meant enough to you that you wanted to personalise it to the goddamn ’28th night of September’, that you wanted to cover it with banjo, and that you changed the sacred ‘ba-de-ya’ to the more Caucasian ‘ah-ah-ah’ to make it sound more like a field of daffodils than a Soul Train line.”

Make your own assessment of Taylor’s cover of ‘September’ after listening below…