Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift
Taylor Alison Swiftis an American singer-songwriter. Raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. She signed with the independent label Big Machine Records and became the youngest songwriter ever signed by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house. The release of Swift's eponymous debut album in 2006 marked the start of her career as a country music singer. Her third single, "Our Song", made her the youngest person to...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPop Singer
Date of Birth13 December 1989
CityReading, PA
CountryUnited States of America
I remember auditioning for record labels and having them tell me, 'Well, the country-radio demographic is the thirty-five-year-old female housewife. Give us a song that relates to the thirty-five-year-old female, and we'll talk.'
My parents moved across the country so I could pursue a dream.
Words can break someone into a million pieces, but they can also put them back together
I think I first realized I wanted to be in country music and be an artist when I was 10. And I started dragging my parents to festivals, and fairs, and karaoke contests, and I did that for about a year before I came to Nashville for the first time. I was 11 and I had this demo CD of me singing Dixie Chicks and Leanne Rimes songs.
I think the first thing you should know is that nobody in country music 'made it' the same way. It's all different. There's no blueprint for success, and sometimes you just have to work at it.
When I was 9 or 10, I used to get all the lead roles because I was the tallest person. But my interest in music soon drew me to country music. I was infatuated with the sound, with the storytelling. I could relate to it. I can't really tell you why. With me, it was just instinctual.
I got to play Kim in Bye Bye Birdie, Sandy in Grease, and Maria in The Sound of Music. And it was so much fun for me, but the thing that I looked forward to the most was at the cast parties. After the shows they had karaoke machines set up and that's when I could sing country music.
You can't generalise about an entire country, but I like the energy of British men.
So many girls come up and say to me, 'I have never listened to country music in my life. I didn't even know my town had a country-music station. Then I got your record, and now I'm obsessed.' That's the coolest compliment to me.
One of the things people don't really recognise about the similarities between country and hip-hop is that they're celebrations of pride in a lifestyle.
I love being a part of the country-music community.
My definition of country music is really pretty simple. It's when someone sings about their life and what they know, from an authentic place.
It never mattered to me that people in school didn't think that country music was cool, and they made fun of me for it - though it did matter to me that I was not wearing the clothes that everybody was wearing at that moment. But at some point, I was just like, 'I like wearing sundresses and cowboy boots.'
I know that a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania is about the most random place for a country singer to come from, but I had an awesome childhood.