Taylor Swift doesn’t do a lot of lengthy video interviews, but in conjunction with The New York Times naming her as one of America’s greatest living songwriters, the pop star opened up on camera about her life, career and fanbase as they relate to her craft.
The newspaper rolled out its 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters roundup on Monday (April 27), including the 14-time Grammy winner among icons such as Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, as well as fellow modern superstars like Jay-Z, Bad Bunny and Kendrick Lamar. With 276 entries on the Billboard Hot 100 — more than any other artist aside from Drake — and 14 No. 1s, it’s no wonder why she made the list, which was narrowed down by editors after reviewing ballots submitted by hundreds of music experts.
“We considered all sorts of remarkable songwriters — including lots of weird geniuses and under-loved influences,” reads a separate NYT article about its methodology. “But we were drawn back toward the beating-heart story of American song, to people whose music has reverberated through private worlds and across the public square, echoing through headphones, radios, grocery-store aisles, TikTok videos and school-gym ceremonies, blasting out of karaoke machines, club speakers and the windows of passing cars.”
Swift’s music objectively ticks all those boxes, which has allowed her to stay on top of the pop-culture heap for nearly two decades and go down in history as one of the best-selling artists of all time. But it’s also opened her up to a lot of questions about her work — What inspires her? How is she as a collaborator? Does she dislike when people analyze her music for clues about her personal life? — and in her conversation with the paper, she addressed many of them.
Below, see Billboard‘s biggest takeaways from the hitmaker’s Greatest Living American Songwriters interview.
-
Her Earliest Influences Included “Emo Music”
After explaining that the storytelling tradition of country music first attracted her to songwriting, Swift revealed that an unexpected genre was also a major early inspiration for her.
“I was the most intensely impacted by emo music,” she shared. “Dashboard Confessional, Chris Carrabba, Fall Out Boy, Pete Wentz’s lyrics … how they take a common phrase and just twist the knife of it.”
“The specificity of ‘Hands Down’ by Dashboard Confessional,” she added incredulously. “I would finish reading a line and be like, ‘Oh my god!’”
-
This Song Came From a Car Ride With Travis Kelce
According to Swift, the origins of The Life of a Showgirl single “Elizabeth Taylor” date back to a simple car ride with her fiancé. “I’m riding in the car with Travis,” she recalled. “I go on and on explaining to Travis why I love Elizabeth Taylor so much — she fought for artist rights, she was exploited in so many ways and yet she kept her humanity.
“We get home, he gets out of the car, and I’m just in my head [with] this intrusive melody,” she continued, singing the opening lines of the track’s chorus. “I’m just scrambling to open my record app on my phone.”
-
She Thinks People “Slept On” This Song
Just about every Taylor Swift fan has a song or two of hers that they think is vastly underrated — but does she? As it turns out, yes.
“I loved the Reputation album,” she told NYT. “I was like, ‘You guys say what you want. I know what I did. I love it. Go with God, sorry.’”
“Six or seven years later people are like, ‘Oh my god,’” she continued of the delayed appreciation for her sixth studio album. “Like, ‘Ready for It.’ People slept on that song. When we were making that song, I just remember I wanted to head-bang myself through the wall.”
-
She Thought This Song Might Be Too Honest
Swift explained that “Mirrorball,” a fan-favorite track from Folklore, made her briefly question whether she was being too transparent about herself in the lyrics.
“Being a person in the public eye, I’ve really begun to realize that you are a mirror,” she said. “However [people] feel about themselves and their life will be projected onto how they perceive you. That’s part of why I’ve been able to keep my wits about me through all of this, because I know that.”
That dynamic inspired her to write the “Mirrorball” line, “I’ve never been a natural/ All I do is try, try, try.”
“I remember writing that and being like, ‘Oh my god … do you want to say this?’” she added. “I’m like, ‘Actually, I feel like a lot of people feel that way.’ That always overrides my discomfort with if a line feels ‘too true.’ Because I don’t think there’s anything that’s too true.”
-
“All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” Involved ‘Extensive Restoration’
Swift has previously shared how she originally wrote her Red standout “All Too Well” during a soundcheck for her 2011 Speak Now Tour, improvising lyrics for 10 minutes straight while freshly heartbroken and later narrowing down the material to five minutes. After years of demanding the full version, fans finally got it when the musician released Red (Taylor’s Version), and the extended “All Too Well” ascended to the top of the Hot 100.
But in her interview with NYT, Swift shared more details about what it took to make that happen. “I was going back through diaries and finding little fragments of it,” she said. “I didn’t have the old [recording] anymore, so I was looking through safes, trying to find the CD. But I had to go back and piece together lyrics.”
She added, “That was the most extensive restoration process I’ve ever done on a song.”
-
She Likes When Cowriters “Challenge” Her
She might be one of the most well known songwriters in the world, but Swift never wants her collaborators to blow smoke in sessions.
“I always apply the rule: May the best idea win,” she told NYT. “I don’t care if it came from you, you or me. If it’s better, that’s what goes in the song.”
“I do kind of like it when people challenge me on something,” the singer added. “I never want to be in the room with creators who are afraid that if they have a better idea they can’t argue with me. I’m never gonna grow that way.”
-
She Thinks It’s “Weird” When Fans Do This
Swift knows that a lot of people’s favorite topic of discussion regarding her music is the person she may or may not have written any given song about — and in the interview, she shared how that makes her feel. “There’s so many of [my fans] now, which is great,” she began. “But there’s corners of my fanbase who are going to take things to a really extreme place. There’s nothing I can do about that.”
“There’s people who are gonna do detective work, figure out the details, ‘Who is that about?’” she continued. “When it gets a little bit weird for me is when people act like it’s sort of a paternity test, like, ‘This song’s about that person.’ I’m like, ‘That dude didn’t write the song, I did.’ But that’s part of it. You have to hold tight to your perception of your art.”
Leave a comment