Taylor Swift talks penning ‘Safe & Sound’ and shooting music video

Taylor Swift just premiered her new video for the song “Safe & Sound,” which will be featured on The Hunger Games soundtrack. The video features a barefoot Swift in a white nightgown wandering the forest in search of something that is no longer there.

Swift admits that when she was first asked to write a song for The Hunger Games, she didn’t think that she would write a song so sad, because she hadn’t read the books at the time.

"When I got the call, I thought from what I'd heard about the movie, 'It's an action movie, right? We're probably going to be writing a song that's like, "We're going to win!’" She recalled on MTV First: Taylor Swift. “And then I read the book, and I thought, 'No, we're going to have to write sort of a death lullaby, it's so different from what I thought.' "

Swift says the simple video, which also features The Civil Wars, and the Mockingjay pin recognized in the books, was “eerie” at times, not only because it was shot in a cemetery, but because it reminded her of life and death in the books.

"It's one of my favorite moments in the video; there's this wide shot, where I'm just kind of crumpled up sitting on a gravestone, and it's actually the gravesite of a couple who lived and died in 1853," she told MTV. "I'm sitting here thinking, 'What were their lives like?' It's really eerie, considering what the movie is about and how it deals with life and death. It just absolutely blew my mind."

The 22-year-old appreciates the video even more, since it was her toughest to film.

"It was so cold. It was freezing. I was shaking the whole time and trying not to be shaking when the cameras were rolling. It was about 40 degrees in Nashville. It had just rained," she said. "I'm wearing this 1920s vintage nightgown that didn't provide much warmth. I didn't get sick. I thought I was going to get sick. That was the upside."

The Hunger Games opens in theaters on March 23. Watch Taylor Swift and The Civil Wars’ new video for “Safe & Sound” below.