Taylor Swift: America's Sweetheart (FULL MOVIE)

Taylor Swift is one of the top-selling artists in the world. Oh my god! She was a multi-millionaire by the time she was 18 years old. She's also one of the most successful digital performers in music history. The fans have just made me feel like I've won the lottery of dreams coming true. The sweetheart of middle America, her appeal crosses every divide and all ages. She's never lost that common touch and I think that's what her fans love about her. Her mom is always on the road with her. She's very, very close to her dad and she's also a very loyal friend. Taylor's now one of the wealthiest celebrities in show business with earnings of over 50 million dollars. She's one of the only artists I can think of who has put her personal life so obviously into her music. The lyrics to her song are like reading her personal diary. Those personal diaries reveal some amazing stories about love and romance. Even with some of Hollywood's leading men. She disses and dishes. And her drive and ambition make her an inspiration for kids everywhere. I think part of being in this business is being competitive and being somewhat restless. Always wanting to achieve more than you have and it's kind of like playing yourself. You know, you want to beat what you've already done. Taylor Swift is quite simply a superstar of her generation and undisputed princess of the country pop scene. This is her incredible story. It really touches me every time I look down and I see all the fans singing the words to my songs. Having written the lyrics, it means the world to me. I think Taylor writes from the heart and she does write for her audience, primarily of teenage girls who are in high school who are going through the same things. But the themes of her music like, you know, heartbreak, love, disappointment, romance, having a great day with your mom. These are things that everyone can relate to of all ages. Her lyrics are Taylor Swift. They are her life. She said in an interview once that the lyrics to her song are like reading her personal diary. And it is just that you can feel the emotion coming across in each one of her songs. She's experienced that. And again, it comes back down to the relatability of such a big fan base as well. They love her because of that, because they can relate to what she's been through. Despite still being in her early 20s, Taylor has had no shortage on the boyfriend front, even dating some of Hollywood's leading men. Look, she is undoubtedly now one of the most eligible stars in Hollywood. And she has had so many high profile, I say relationships, but they've never quite got to that stage. They've been at the dating stage. But look, you know, Jake Gyllenhaal, Joe Jonas, of course, John Mayer, even Zac Efron, one of the most eligible men in Hollywood. And Cordova Street, who's one of the stars of Glee. You know, you hear it on the new album, Speak Now. There's Dear John song, you know, she was dating John Mayer, about a very, you know, egocentric guy. And, you know, she disses and dishes. When John Mayer was a jerk to her, she wrote about it. When Joe Jonas dumped her in a 27 second phone call, she talked about it on Ellen DeGeneres and sang about it in her music. She's one of the only artists I can think of who has put her personal life so obviously into her music. There were rumors when Taylor was dating Jake Gyllenhaal that he had said to her, look, if we break up, I don't want to hear about it in a song. Like you're banned from ever writing about it. So if she is going to write about Jake, she's probably going to have to disguise it a little bit better. But Taylor knows who her fans are and she doesn't see any reason not to be 100% honest about what she's been through. And I think people really like that. Whatever you do, if you go out with Taylor Swift, don't dump her, don't upset her because she's bound to write a song about you. And I remember another interview, she said that every one of her ex-boyfriends has been tracked down on MySpace or something like that through the songs that she's written. So there's your warning. Very recently, Taylor recorded a song called Mean. You're so mean. And she's singing to someone who's basically just told her she can't really sing. There's a lot of speculation. It's about John Mayer. We don't know who that one's aimed at. In the words, it's something like, you know, I'm going to end up on tour and you're going to be stuck still where you are right now. And you're so mean. And I love the fact that Taylor uses her music to kind of fight back and either defend herself or stand her ground against those who are less than kind to her. Why you gotta be so mean? Taylor is now one of the wealthiest performers in the business, said to earn around $50 million a year. Her recent concert at Madison Square Garden sold out immediately. I'm just so excited. I cannot believe all the sellouts. Like when I get a call like that, when they're like, oh, by the way, the tour sold out Madison Square Garden in a minute. I don't know how to react to that other than to just start jumping up and down and screaming. She was a multi-millionaire by the time she was 18 years old. And actually, that screws a lot of people up. It screws a lot of young stars up. But what Taylor's always said is that actually, her dad was a financial advisor growing up. She's heard a hundred times that she needs to save her money. I've never expected that kind of success. I've never just felt entitled to my shows selling out or things like this. But the fact that they have happened to me has been wonderful. She's a very modest person with her money. She's saved a lot of it. And she doesn't by any means lead an extraordinarily rock star lifestyle. She's a country girl. She really is at heart. She says her biggest luxury wasn't a house or a fast car or anything ridiculous like that. It was actually a tour bus, which does sound pretty cool. It's got a fireplace and a treadmill in it. But obviously, it's pretty practical because she's on the road for the majority of the time. So how did it all begin for Taylor Swift? And what kind of background did she have? Well, Taylor Swift, known as America's sweetheart, really did have very much an idyllic American childhood. I mean, she grew up on a Christmas tree farm, for heaven's sake, in rural Pennsylvania with a very close family unit. Her dad's a stockbroker. She has one brother, Austin. Very close with her family. Taylor has said repeatedly her mom is her best friend. So this is a very close family unit. Very caring, loving family. And actually, incredibly, her mom and dad weren't really into music either. You might be thinking, where did she get her talent for music from? Because obviously, dad's a stockbroker, mom housewife. Her gran was an opera singer. So I think that's where it all started from. Taylor soon emerged as something of a musical prodigy. Taylor has said herself that at the age of four, they would take her parents, take her to see Disney movies, and she would come back and know the soundtrack verbatim, be able to sing every song word for word. I know Disney films are addictive, but that's some talent right there just to be able to remember that. In fact, she said it really freaked her parents out. But, you know, I think from an early age, Taylor knew where her passion and her ability lay, and she was not going to miss out on that. Taylor was a child prodigy. There is no other way to put it. She was so immensely talented from such a young age. And it wasn't just music either. I mean, she wrote poetry, for example. This incredible poem called Monster in My Closet when she was nine. And actually, just a couple of years later, she even wrote a 350-page novel, which remains unpublished to this day. She was auditioning for the theater productions, and then she went to perform on Broadway as well. Her grandmother had been involved in opera, so there was some musical genes in the family. But she seemed to know at a pretty young age that that's what she wanted to do or wanted to try. Her talent was just incredible for someone of her age. This is someone who was very much kind of a child prodigy, kind of a genius, really, from the very beginning. And I think her parents did everything they could to encourage that and simply not get in her way. By the age of 12, she could play a 12-string guitar. But not many people actually know that she started to learn guitar at a younger age. And she only really started when a computer repairman came around and showed her a few chords on the guitar. She fell in love with it straight away. And, well, as you say, by the age of 12, she was playing 12-string guitar. It's some talent right there. Taylor says her early songwriting helped ease her pain at not fitting in at school. She talks about when she was in school that she really felt like she was one of the losers, that she was not the cheerleader, she was not part of the in crowd. She wasn't the mathlete or the athlete. She was kind of a tall, lanky girl with frizzy hair who liked nothing better than to sit with her notebooks and write songs. She's really, I think, kept in touch with that, knowing kind of a little what it's like to be an outsider. The thing is, American high schools are notoriously tough, especially if you're someone who has quite a big talent, which Taylor has. That has also informed a lot of her songwriting. I mean, you see lots of sort of subtle digs at kind of the popular girls. Taylor has been quite open, actually, about how she was bullied at school. She didn't want to be one of those girls who would go out, sneak some naughty alcoholic drinks and party hard into the night. That was never her thing. Her preference was always to be firstly in her bedroom writing songs, secondly, spending time with her family. And then as her music talent developed, actually, she wanted to be out singing at music festivals and that sort of thing. So as a result, she never really fit in at school. And some of her most powerful songs have actually come from talking about that time, like 15, for example. 15 was inspired by Taylor's freshman year at high school, when both she and her best friend, Abigail, suffered broken hearts. She asked Abigail's permission before releasing the song. Taylor has been asked many times, how do you write your songs? How do you come up with your lyrics? And she has herself said, look, go to high school and write about it. And that's basically what she's done. In her spare time, she'd just go in her bedroom and whatever kind of happened to her that day, she'd write about it. It was sort of her diary. I think with a lot of celebrities who are actually geniuses, they never really did fit in high school because at that time, their talent and ability isn't really recognized as something everybody gets. But Taylor very quickly was moved into superstardom. Even at the age most girls are picking out a senior prom dress, she was attending the Grammys and winning. She may not have been popular in high school, but it certainly gave her an awful lot of material. As a young girl growing up in Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Taylor's greatest influences were some of the biggest names in country music, celebrated giants of the business. Her country and Western influences stem from the likes of Dolly Parton, obviously a great country and Western icon. Shania Twain, Leanne Rimes, the Dixie Chicks as well, actually, all influenced her quite a lot. You can hear each of them, actually, in her music. You hear a lot of Shania Twain, a lot of Natalie Maines, the Dixie Chicks, a lot of much more contemporary country songwriters and country acts. So, I mean, I know she's name-checked people like Patsy Cline in the past, and you can definitely see a certain element of Patsy Cline there, but she's very contemporary. Taylor has said her major musical influence is Shania Twain, that kind of combination of pop and country music. Also, Shania has a very glamorous look and a lot of fun with her videos. I think Taylor likes that. The other thing is, Shania sings a lot about real life, what she's gone through herself, very honest and open ballads, and I think Taylor resonates with that as well. Even though Taylor Swift has no real sort of West Coast background, I mean, she's grown up entirely in the sort of New England area and in Nashville, I think there's a definite kinship with the Laurel Canyon 1970s sort of post-hippie country singers. And you get into people like Joni Mitchell and Graham Parsons, who really had no connection to the southern roots of country music and kind of invested it with this sort of breezier, much more pop and rock-oriented sound. It was around this time that songwriting became a major force in Taylor's life. For her, it was as natural as breathing. Taylor's songwriting is just brilliant, and it started at such a young age as well, which is what is so weird about her in a way. She is quite freakish with her songwriting talent. And what she said to me, actually, is that is where her real passion has always been, the songwriting. Songwriting is really sort of like an escape. It's an escape from the reality where you have to say the exact right thing at the exact right time. Because for me, a lot of my songs are confessions of love or confessions of sadness or confessions of loneliness or frustration. And I'm not excellent at saying those things in the right moment when they happen in real life. But I can say it in a song. Taylor has always said to me her songwriting is like almost writing a teenage diary. It's where she put all of her emotion in. It's where she told her stories. It's where she, I guess, got through school bullying as well because she always just was able to come home from school and write these incredible songs. You know, you have to remember, Taylor Swift is a tremendous songwriter. She has written more than 200 songs in her very short lifetime. She wrote all the songs on her last two albums. And I think what the appeal of Taylor Swift, in addition to her voice, in addition to her image, is the fact that she really is singing from the heart about what she knows. Taylor refused to let anything stand in the way of her dream. From a very early age, Taylor clearly had the family wrapped around her little finger because she persuaded her parents to take her for long drives into New York to audition for off-Broadway shows and even take her every month down to Nashville so she could try and meet with agents and recording artists and songwriters. And this was from the age of like 11 or 12. She had persuaded them to do this. Taylor started knocking on every record label door, clutching her little demo tape of karaoke songs. And at the time, every label in town rejected her. She would walk down the street in Nashville and she would go from door to door, knocking on the doors and go, hi, I'm Taylor. I write songs. Would you give me a deal? For the most part, she would meet a secretary and maybe leave one of her tapes and went back home and nothing happened. But she started getting her name out there. Most 11-year-olds are what? Chilling out with mates, having fun, watching TV, not thinking about their career or their passion. But Taylor knew what she wanted to do. She knew she wanted to be in music. By the time she was 14, she had persuaded the family to move Kit and Caboodle to a modest suburb near Nashville. Ultimately, Taylor actually convinced her parents to pick up sticks out of Pennsylvania and move to Nashville when she was only a teenager because she was so determined and had such a strong belief in herself that she was in fact going to be a star. Really, it was at that point when the entire family realised that this was probably going to be their full-time life for a couple of years. But what it shows as well is just that incredible faith that her parents had in Taylor's talent. They believed in her. They were never pushy. This was always driven by Taylor, not them. But they knew that it was a risk that was worth taking. I spent that entire time trying to get a record deal and actually moved to Nashville when I was 13 and didn't get a record deal right away. Taylor has a sign in her tour bus that says, Never Ever Give Up. And I think that really does kind of epitomise who she is and what she believes today. You don't get to be a multi-million pound recording artist like Taylor is at the age of 21 without that kind of belief. I think from the very beginning, despite getting turned down in Nashville month after month after month, Taylor never gave up. Her parents never gave up on her. And really, it paid off. I signed a publishing deal and became a staff songwriter at Sony ATV Publishing. And so I would write every single day after school because it was a job. You know, I was a paid songwriter when I was 14. So I wrote songs in Nashville for two and a half years. At 14 years old, she's there writing songs and interacting with other songwriters and learning the craft and really finding out how you put a song together, what makes a hit, what doesn't make a hit. And she gets lots of experience doing this. My most ultimate heroes were the songwriters of Nashville. The people who wrote the hooks that got stuck in your head, those were the people that I wanted to meet. And so when I got a publishing deal, that gave me an excuse to write songs with those people every day and try to meet as many of them as I could and learn as many things as I could. You know, it was sort of like I had this double life where I got to go to school during the day and then my mom would pick me up from school and I'd go downtown and write songs at night. At age 15, Taylor was presented with what most artists would basically dream of, which was an artist development deal at RCA. And she turned it down. I think they were absolutely astounded that this little 15 year old said no. The deal as it was, was that they would kind of take her on, see what she produced and then ultimately make a decision. And Taylor said, it was like a guy that wants to date you, but doesn't want to be your boyfriend. She didn't want that at all. So she decided to leave RCA. At the age of 15, she didn't want it. So she dumped that record deal. She didn't like the fact that they wanted her to sing other people's songs and she didn't feel like they really completely backed her. RCA's argument was that at 15, she was just too young. But Taylor made the decision to leave and actually not being with a major record company has been one of the most important parts of her career. She had a vision of what she wanted her music to sound like. And she would tell me that she hears this stuff in her head. And so the challenge is then to go into the studio and translate into the real world what she's hearing in her head. It was around this time that Taylor captured the attention of record label owner, Scott Borchetta. She was just doing a little performance at the Bluebird Cafe, which is a local songwriting venue in Nashville, where a lot of country performers would go and sing. And Scott Borchetta, who was a local record executive, but a man on the rise, definitely, he spotted her, signed her almost instantly. Scott Borchetta said, okay, I want you to do your songs and I'll let you be involved in the process. Which at the time, this was, she was 16 at this point. It's a big gamble. What he allowed her to do was always have full control of her music. So he was a real nurturing force. He believed in her. He always has believed in her. But unlike her former record company, RCA, he didn't say, look, can't you sing this other person's song? Can't you dress up a little bit like this? He was always prepared to basically fulfill Taylor's vision. But without Scott, Taylor would never have had that incredible success. I'm sure it wasn't lost on him. That there wasn't really anybody who was singing directly to this audience. A teenage audience wasn't a big part of country music at that point. And she tapped into this. With the release of her first single, Tim McGraw, Taylor finally found the yellow brick road to fame that she had been so desperately seeking. And a star was born. Scott Borchetta, he then guided Taylor's career. And it was not long before she actually released her first single in 2006 on his label, Big Machine Records. The song was called Tim McGraw. Taylor had written it when she was very young. And Tim McGraw was obviously a country music icon. It was a very clever piece of marketing, whether it was intentional or not, who knows on Taylor Swift's part. But Tim McGraw, obviously massive, massive star idol in the country and Western world. Taylor had a crush on him when she was at school. So to release this song, the country and Western guys instantly picked up on it. The fans absolutely loved it and fell in love with Taylor Swift. It sped up the country music charts. So she was already marked at that stage as a real country star on the rise. But what was incredible is that with that first single, Taylor managed to cross over onto the pop charts almost instantly. And people thought, actually, this is someone who could potentially be the next Shania Twain. What's known as a crossover artist, a country star that can still have mainstream hits on the Billboard charts. And what's so incredible is that happened right from single one when Taylor was still so young, still a teenager. Here's a sharp kid. She writes a song that name drops one of the biggest country stars. And she gets airplay on that song. Tim McGraw went on to be an international mega hit. And you just think this is a young girl in a school bedroom, no help. And look at what happened. Her debut album called simply Taylor Swift was released in 2006. Well, I think what was so extraordinary about Taylor's first album is that there were so many hits on the album. And as one song would go straight to number one, another one was coming out. Her first album just kept selling and selling. And they kept having more hit singles off it, which was a surprise. Especially with the debut album. One of those hit singles was called Teardrops on My Guitar. And it came straight from Taylor's heart. I wrote it about a situation that I went through when I was in high school, when I sat next to this guy in class and I had the biggest crush on him. And he had no idea. Every single day he would come in and sit down and talk to me about his girlfriend. And I got sick and tired of it one day. And so I wrote this song about it. And well, needless to say, I'm guessing the secret's out at this point. The country and Western fans just lapped up. They loved it. And she was crossing over into the pop world as well. So she was getting a lot of support from there. You know, she may be very young, but she still experiences life, love and disappointment the way the rest of us do. And despite the fact that people may be a lot older or from different cultures or different perspectives, I think she really gets to the heart of what all of us feel in those situations. Hence her incredible mainstream and widespread appeal. I'm just hoping that, you know, I have a second album that does as well as the first. And, you know, someday get to be a headliner and always be the same person that I started out as. Taylor's hopes for her second album were realized. And with Fearless, she became the first artist in music history to have two albums in the top 10 on the year-end album charts. What people didn't realize is that Taylor had actually been writing songs for years by the time she became famous. Since she was like 12 or 13, she had all these notebooks with songs. So her kind of prolific ability as a songwriter is a big part of what led to her ultimate superstardom. Fearless was definitely a big step up for her, I think. I mean, definitely in her songwriting and obviously commercially. I remember talking to her and she was going, I'm so excited for you to hear where we're going because it's going to be so much better. The first single from Fearless was called Love Story. And that song was the song that really catapulted her to superstar status all around the world. Because I think to this day, it's considered her biggest crossover hit. It was a real pop song. They did a pop remix of it. And from that day, really, Taylor Swift was a force to be reckoned with on the charts. The story goes with Love Story that she was upset with her parents and therefore sort of projected these personal feelings onto Romeo and Juliet. After this whole blow up with her parents, she runs into a room and writes a song and said, at that moment, I completely identified with everything about Romeo and Juliet, except the part where they both die. So why can't it have a happy ending? And she gave it a happy ending and had a great ending for her because it turned into a huge hit. The songs that she wrote or co-wrote for Fearless are as good as anything made by seasoned Nashville pros. I mean, there's a just undeniable pop mastery there at work. For this record, she co-produced it, too, got co-producing credit with Nathan Chapman, who had produced the first one, showing that she's really the creative force behind all elements of the music that she's making. All but two of the songs on Fearless were released as singles. And I can't remember the last time, I mean, maybe Thriller, you know, was the last album I could think of where not, I mean, not just song sales, but just every song, people know every song. In 2007, Taylor lost out to Amy Winehouse in the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. But incredibly, by 2008, she'd become the biggest selling performer in America, winning four Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. So I met Taylor Swift for the first time just before her first big night at the Grammys in 2007, when she actually lost out to Amy Winehouse to win the Best New Artist award, but did an incredible and much talked about duet with Miley Cyrus on stage. And at that point, Taylor Swift really was just exploding. In America, she was becoming a household name. But what I loved about her from the first moment I met her was firstly how down to earth she was. She has her mom on the road with her all the time. She loves eating frozen yogurts, it's really the simple things that get her excited. And she just had her head so screwed on. She knew exactly what she was talking about. She wasn't prepared to go down the route of Britney Spears and do sexy shoots and take her clothes off. She just, it was just so obvious to me that she knew exactly what she wanted to be as an artist. At the 44th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards, Taylor also picked up the Album of the Year honors as a performer and producer on Fearless, proving herself the youngest ever artist in history to win the award. Before it came out, we got together and she insisted on playing some things for me. And she had her iPod there and she's zipping through and go, okay, you gotta hear this one. And so I got a preview of it and was impressed by the amount of growth that I heard from two years before. Musically, she had certainly grown in two short years. And amazingly, she was still only 19. I never imagined that the unattainable thing that I had always held in my mind and my imagination would happen to me at 19. I couldn't be more grateful, but I love a challenge. And right now the challenge is to find that next challenge. But as Taylor admits herself, she couldn't have achieved all her success without the help of the team behind her. Honestly, I owe so much of that Entertainer of the Year award to the people who set up that stage every night and the people behind the scenes who are taking calls and sending emails and know how to work a fax machine. Those people are gonna be the ones that I spend time with tonight and jump up and down and hug nonstop. Taylor's family has always been an incredible support to her. And she has a particularly strong bond with her mother, Andrea. She has one song called The Best Day, and it's about a day she spent with her mom and just the time they spent together. And she took her out of school and they just hung out together. And the stuff that she talks about is very simple, but it's stuff that everyone can relate to. I don't deserve to be thanked for this, but I'm just gonna thank one. And that's the person that used to love to go to lunch with her friends and cook dinner for her family and sleep in her bed every night. And she gave that all away and left it all behind to go on the road with her 16-year-old daughter. And then she was sleeping in rental cars and in airplanes with her mouth hanging wide open because she was so tired. And so mom, thank you so much. I love you. Along the way, Big Machine Records has developed a marketing strategy for Taylor that has carefully mapped out her dazzling road to stardom. Scott Borchetta has always looked after things very carefully. He's done some really clever commercial deals as well. In 2008, they released an exclusive EP via Walmart, obviously a massive retailer in America. When you sign an exclusive with Walmart, you get displays in the store, your album, your cardboard cutout is put out. I think she did a closed circuit TV performance where that was shown only in Walmart. So if you wanted to see this thing and you're a Taylor Swift fan, you had to go down to your Walmart store and watch this. As sure-footed as her marketing strategy has been, Taylor's perfectly groomed girl-next-door image has also been carefully nurtured. The antithesis of raunchier rivals like Rihanna and Christina Aguilera, her softer American sweetheart look has really paid off. One of the things that she says a lot is you're never going to see her coming out of a night you're never going to see her drunk. She's very much America's sweetheart and she intends to stay there. I think for me, I just really try to concentrate on the fact that everybody is waiting for you to mess up. You know, you have to kind of embrace that. I don't like to drink out of glasses that aren't marked. I drink out of like water bottles or if I'm drinking Diet Coke, I make sure it's in a bottle. Taylor herself has said that she always thinks about, you know, in regards to going clubbing, the six-year-old fan who's at the concert with her mom the day after and what is she going to think about her if she sees those pictures. Taylor takes that very seriously and hence a lot of people want Taylor associated with their brand because of the fact that she is such a squeaky clean pop star. People will completely jump all over you for the littlest things and unfortunately, the mistakes that people make in everyday life are blown out of proportion because this is the lifestyle that I chose. But you know what? I'm lucky to be able to live this lifestyle so I can adapt to change, you know? I first met her in Nashville after she had just turned 17. This was a teenager who was happy to sound like a teenager. We'd had the Brittneys and Christina Aguileras and performers like that where everybody's trying to move beyond their years and she was happy being in the years that she was living in and it sounded very believable. In this day and age of pop star porn, it's very refreshing to see a very alternative image in what we see in Taylor Swift. This clean cut image has earned her fans all over the globe. Fans of all ages. The Taylor Swift fans are everyone. I mean, they really cross any sort of categories you can put them into. I mean, when you look at just the amount of records she's sold of all three of her albums, no one sells records in those quantities anymore. Everyone talks about the music business becoming more and more fragmented and that you just have certain audiences who buy certain records. If you have those fragments, none of those fragments can sell as many records as Taylor Swift has. So obviously she's crossing any category you can find really. Taylor is very committed to her fans. She loves her fans and she doesn't make a distinction between her friends and her fans as she has said. She stands around in shopping malls with endless amounts of time seemingly to talk to them, to listen to them, to take pictures. She's known for this. When I was a little kid I would see singers on TV playing concerts or music videos and stuff. I would always think to myself if I was ever lucky enough by some crazy, crazy chance I could ever do that, I would want to sign autographs all day, every day for anybody who wanted one. I want to take pictures with everybody and I wanted to say thank you for all the stuff that they've done for me. They've made my life really fun. I think, you know, as Taylor herself has said, you know, she was in high school just like everybody else. She just had a slightly better job, a slightly different senior prom. I think her senior prom night she was actually at the Grammys, you know, receiving an award. So a little bit of a different experience but she's never lost that common touch. And I think that's what her fans love about her. They can relate to her and they feel like she still kind of understands where they're coming from. We're all having really good time today and they're all telling me really sweet stories Look at all the bracelets that all the girls have given me today. This is just today. And I don't know, this is just this has been one of the coolest days I can remember. In America, she is America's sweetheart, I suppose. The songs she comes out with, the lyrics she writes are very emotional, very personal. And because of that, everyone can relate to them and you get fans through that, being something real as Taylor Swift is. Taylor's worldwide popularity was crystallized when she became one of the most successful artists in download music history. Taylor Swift has sold an awful lot of music. In fact, in addition to all of her albums, she is one of the top downloaded artists of all time. I think her songs are very catchy and also have the advantage of appearing in a lot of movie soundtracks and TV shows like Grey's Anatomy, which appeal to a very broad fan base. There's nothing offensive or extreme about any of Taylor's music. So I think it really does kind of appeal to a mainstream. Taylor Swift or someone in her camp just seems to have the Midas touch. When it comes to marketing and getting her music out there, the Walmart thing was genius to start with. And then of course, downloading, getting bigger and bigger and bigger is how most people get their music now. Love Story was the most downloaded, paid for song in history from someone so young. It's incredible. Fearless also became the biggest selling digital country album ever. Her first album, Taylor Swift, is currently in second place. In 2008, Taylor played with Def Leppard at a show in Nashville and the combination of her country style rock and Leppard's heavy metal sound created a huge stir in the music world. Coincidentally, the song she performed with Def Leppard, Hysteria, was produced by legendary music producer Mutt Lang, former husband of Taylor's great idol, Shania Twain. The collaboration also thrilled Taylor's mother, Andrea. I think it did seem to a lot of people like an odd couple pairing. But again, for her, this was, you know, her mother's favorite group. And of course, her mom is going to say, absolutely, you can do this project. And it made sense to her. She's born a Def Leppard fan because of her parents. And so she's not, I mean, she could crawl. I think she saw herself as one day being, you know, an arena headliner. And that's what Def Leppard was all about. It was about going out there and playing to lots of people, getting them to stand up, cheer, and sing along with your catchy choruses. We just thought it was a great opportunity to do something just different. Taylor's unique style of country rock has crossed every divide and explains her tremendous popularity on the contemporary music scene. I live in Nashville. I sing country music. And the fact that people outside of this genre have accepted me, it just makes my days more sunny. And I'm so happy about it. The country pop crossover had been building and building for a long time. But I think there's something about her that just crystallized it because she looks like she could be a pop star in any genre. I mean, the way she looks, the way she presents herself, and just sort of her knack for a pop hook. Those things are universal. I absolutely love the pop crossover stuff. It's really fun for me. I love hearing different takes on my music and hearing different genres and different formats listening and adding my songs. It's just something that I'm very thankful for. Well, Taylor has described her music herself as country-tinged pop, very much along the lines of her own personal hero, Shania Twain. I think Taylor has very much transcended the country-western market. And a lot of people don't even think of her as a country-western singer, but think of her instead as a pop star. The fact that she's managed to appeal to very different, disparate groups says a lot about who Taylor Swift really is. Taylor's third album, Speak Now, was another instant success and went roaring up the download charts. One of the things that's impressive about her latest album, Speak Now, is how well it did. There was a lot of anticipation in how would this go over, would she be able to sustain these incredible sales that she's had before. Well, first week, she sold more than a million copies, which had not been done since Lil Wayne put a record out, and hers actually sold more than his, sold more than any album since 50 Cent five and a half years ago, when a lot of things were very different in the record business. And proving her global popularity, Scott Borchetta and Big Machine Records recently surprised Taylor with some breathtaking figures. The number 20 million, to me, is just such a high number that I never, ever imagined that selling that many records could happen to me. Because it's something that happens to you. You know, you make an album and it could either sell 20 copies or 20 million. You make an album that could either go platinum or it could sell 12 copies and it's up to the fans to decide what the certification of a record is. So it's something that's just happened to me. And I'm so happy that it did. Taylor's romances with boys has led to some of her finest songs. It's going great, actually. I've been writing it for the last two years. So this summer, it's all about just the finishing touches and getting in there in the studio and recording the last couple of songs. What are you writing about? Thanks, you guys. What do you think? Boys in love. One of her tracks, Forever and Always, is said to have been inspired by her romance with a member of America's best-known boy band. Well, the Joe Jonas thing was great in the sense that she was so honest, uncharacteristically in terms of Hollywood, honest about the breakup. My clear impression from having spoken to her is that Joe really did not treat her in a good way, really, in an appropriate way. Because he dumped her on the phone within 25 seconds. Quite famously, Taylor Swift went on The Ellen Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show in America and spoke about this. And obviously, her message to me at that point, to spread to all of her future boyfriends, was that, I'm not going to talk about you, but what I will do, if you treat me bad, is write a song about you. And that's obviously her incredible power. Listen, you don't want to break up with Taylor Swift. Whoever you are, if you break up with Taylor Swift, she will write a song about you. She projects this image of extreme sort of childlike innocence, while at the same time, there's this really caustic edge to a lot of stuff that she's written. And one, I think, really noteworthy element is that she does name names and she specifically addresses people that she's dated. For example, Joe Jonas from the Jonas Brothers. Or even recently, she has a song, Dear John, which is very explicitly about John Mayer. And I think that directness is part and parcel with all the songs that she writes. She told me at that time, she said, you know, if you're a guy, don't treat me badly. Never treat anybody badly who writes songs, because they'll have the last word. Bizarrely, at the 2009 MTV Awards, one of Taylor's finest moments was marred when Kanye West dramatically stormed her acceptance speech, claiming Beyonce should have won instead of her. Kanye West made a real fool of himself with what he did at the show. I mean, everyone was shocked. Here comes Taylor to, you know, receive a very well-deserved reward and he gets up and makes an absolute idiot of himself rambling about Beyonce, who looked horrified in the audience. He was not doing her any favors either. What an idiot Kanye West is. Why would you ruin Taylor Swift's moment? Someone so young, she's reached that point. And Kanye, a veteran in the pop world, just jumps up on there, ruins it for her moment. Such an idiot. I know he's apologized for it, but you still think, why do that to a girl? Taylor Swift, why? I think what was interesting to me about that whole debacle was that the world, really the world kind of stood up and said, leave her alone. Don't pick on her. We like her. And it was so fascinating because it really galvanized the groundswell of Taylor Swift fans who were outraged on her behalf and her poor treatment. And you have this kind of angry guy, you know, shoving this young girl away from the microphone. I mean, it was really horrible to see. I felt terrible for her. I felt awful. It was definitely a TV moment that you won't forget. You just thought, oh my goodness, it was, I mean, people were so mad. Taylor herself was very gracious about the whole thing. You know, she loves to snark back, you know, but she didn't really in this case, she was very gracious. She never really criticized Kanye, who basically went into hiding after the incident because he had embarrassed himself so badly and ended up apologizing profusely on Twitter for really offending, not just Taylor, but really a lot of her fans. Her reaction to that was as America's sweetheart should have been. She was a lady about it. She didn't get upset. She didn't throw a tantrum. She's very aware of her image. And at the end of the day, Kanye West was the one that made a fool of himself, and she was quite happy to just let him have that limelight and not get involved in it. She does project an hour of confidence and just poise, but there's a certain fragility too, which I think is also key to her appeal. I mean, with the Kanye West incident, I mean, everyone sort of wanted to hug her after that. You know, so at the same time, she's this very strong and poised woman. There's a softness and still a sort of childlike element to her. Nobody should do that. You should never ever like, you know, burn out somebody else's candle to make someone, you know, it's not your place to take away a moment from someone ever, ever to do that. But what is Taylor Swift really like as a person? Well, I've met Taylor Swift, and she is just what you expect. You know, she's genuine. She's down to earth. She's friendly. She cares about her fans. She makes time for her fans. She is what, you know, what you see is what you get. On the other hand, you don't get to be where Taylor Swift is without a lot of determination, a lot of self-belief, and the ability to tell people no when they ask you to do something. So she's a lot more savvy than the average 21-year-old. Don't be fooled by that. At the same time, she really is a sweet girl who, as she says, her best friend's her mom. And that really does remain true. My first impressions of Taylor was this is someone who you would love to be a friend of yours because she was completely adorable. And that's the first thing that everyone notices about her. None of this is wasted on me. I'm just really, really loving all of it. And like getting to dress up in dresses and get your hair and makeup done and go to red carpet events like this. It's like, it's just every girl's dream and I love doing it. No airs or graces, incredibly polite, very, very much part of a close family unit. Her mom is always on the road with her. She's very, very close to her dad. And she's also a very loyal friend. Justin Bieber wrote in his autobiography about the time she helped him out. He broke his leg for the second time in a skating accident or something like that. And she was there for him 110%. She was a very kind, caring friend that anyone would love to have. Taylor has talked a lot about how she's an overachiever. You know, she worked really, really, really hard in school. She has written over 200 songs. She's written a novel. You know, she won a poetry contest as a young girl. She's very driven and very motivated. And you know, she doesn't want to be known for anything bad. I remember, you know, coming up in the music industry and like I would make goals for myself that were just ahead of the last goal I had just accomplished. I would never make a goal that was so, so far down the line that I felt like it was unattainable. One of the first things Taylor did when she made her first million was to buy her family a big old house in Nashville and then bought herself a house next door. She decided it was time to move out, but she wasn't ready to totally cut the cord. So she bought a house for her family and a house for herself. She's a good girl. I've met Taylor when I did an interview for Capital Radio here in the UK and she was exactly how I expected her to be. She was very lovely. She was very down to earth. There weren't any airs or graces about her. She was a very sweet young girl. Today, Taylor Swift has acquired a reputation as one of the most dazzling live performers in the business. She puts her heart and soul into every sold out concert and her fans love her for it. She is so great when she's doing a full set. She puts everything into it. She has the audience eating out of the palm of her hands. People forget what a brilliant musician she is and she can be really rocky actually. She gets into those shows and actually she feels most comfortable when she's on stage. I was expected to have to do a lot of stressing out about selling tickets and then I went on my first headlining tour and everything just sold out. And I was like, really, this is how this works? I actually went to a Taylor Swift concert and I was surrounded by screaming 14 year old girls and I have to say, despite the fact that I'm probably a little old to be a fan, it was a fantastic evening. She has a great amount of enthusiasm. She's a natural performer. She loves her fans and I think she obviously sings from the heart and I think that resonates with people of all ages. The fans have just absolutely made me feel like I've won the lottery of dreams coming true. When I'm up there and I look down and I see all of these t-shirts that people have made and the signs that they make are hilarious. Taylor has said, you know, the dream of her life, what drove her all the way through her childhood was the idea of being on stage and having people in the audience singing every word of her song back to her. And she said recently that that started to happen where she sings and she hears the audience singing everything with her. It means a lot to her. That was her dream and that was the focus of all those lonely years trying to make it in Nashville that kept her going. My favorite performance that I've done on an award show was definitely the Rain performance that I did on the ACMs last year. You know, I thought of that performance when I was in middle school, sitting in class. You know, a lot of the ideas that I've gotten to live out on this tour are from me being in school just thinking, hey, you know, what would I do if I ever got to perform on an award show? Probably it's never going to happen, but what would I do if I ever got the chance? And so I remember one day I was sitting there and I was like, wouldn't it be cool if it was just an entire thunderstorm rainstorm on stage? Taylor's song, You Should Have Said No, is allegedly about a boy called Sam who cheated on her when she was 16. And she says that the lyrics are based on actual words she used when confronting him. Never one to rest on her laurels, Taylor has now turned her attention to the acting world, landing a role in the highly popular TV series Hannah Montana and the acclaimed motion picture Valentine's Day, co-starring alongside big movie stars like Jessica Alba, Jamie Foxx and Julia Roberts. I was really interested when I saw that Taylor took the part in Valentine's Day because she was still pretty early in her singing career and it does show you that she does have ambition and could do other things. She was a really good actress in that film and I definitely think in the future she could do more movies. And obviously what was very interesting about that role is it led to one of her relationships with Taylor Lautner, who was the big star of the moment through the Twilight movie franchise and they had an on-screen relationship but by all accounts also got very close off-screen and went on a few dates as well. Taylor's self-confidence and drive is renowned throughout the business. Along with Taylor Swift's precocity as a songwriter and a lyricist, there's also an intense ambition that was present from basically as far back as we know anything about her. You can never fault Taylor for a lack of self-confidence or self-belief. I think her parents did a tremendous job instilling that in her because she really does stand up for what she wants and what she believes she's worth and she certainly has no problems in the self-image department, I think. I always just wanted to make it in country music. That's what I wanted. I mean, I think your dreams change as you start to achieve more of them. I'd love to write songs for other artists. I'd love to have a double platinum album. She's obviously someone who's very hard on herself but has a tremendous amount of self-belief and determination to succeed. This is not someone who's used to failure. In fact, I would be hard-pressed to point to anything at which she has up until now failed. I think part of being in this business is being competitive and being somewhat restless. Always wanting to achieve more than you have and it's kind of like playing yourself. You know, you want to beat what you've already done. But Taylor never takes any of her success for granted. One of the trappings of her global fame is traveling the world. I just feel very lucky to get to take my music to the places I've gotten to take it to, just geographically. I never thought I'd get to go to these places in my life and the fact that I get to go to these places and play music and play music I've written about my life and look down into the crowd and know that the fans relate to that in some way, even though they live halfway across the world, it's an honor. Going on tour for two months in Asia and then Europe has been such a life-changing experience because looking back to before this tour, there were so many things that I didn't know, so many things that I hadn't experienced yet, cultures I hadn't been a part of yet. It's like getting to go into these countries and experience the way that they live their lives and they do their thing and it's like, it's a privilege and that's the way that my band and I have always looked at this and the way we've always looked at world travel. Getting to go out of our comfort zone is a privilege. A place that I was really happy to go to and notice that the fans were just so passionate that I saw a lot of crying in the audience is Madrid. They're so passionate about music that they're just really emotional and then of course coming to the UK is just a level of passion for music that's just unbelievable. You go to Belgium and Norway and Holland and France and Germany, it's like I don't know how to qualify which were my favorite experiences because they were all so wonderful. Along the way, Taylor's tall, model-like figure has also made her something of a fashion muse for major European designers like Roberto Cavalli. This is actually my first time ever meeting Roberto Cavalli. I just met him and I was so excited because he invited me here to attend his shows and I'm just very excited because I've always loved his fashion and I've loved his bold ideas and there's just so much creativity. And she's also been setting fashion trends on the red carpet, wearing some of the world's most influential designers. I'm wearing Kauffman Franco and it's really comfortable, it's like stretchy. So I loved it and what are you wearing? I'm wearing a young designer from Australia named Madda Chesky, Madda Chesky. Sweet. Yeah, and we own our own diamonds here. These are ours. Really? No, I'm kidding. Mine, I was going to say mine are completely not mine. We're going to steal them though. These are Lorraine Schwartz. These are two. Are they? She's so awesome. That's a lot of bling. Ralph Lauren designed my dress so I'm sitting at his table and so I'm excited about meeting him and saying thanks for making this dress. I'm wearing Marquesa and it makes me feel completely just, it's airy and light and comfortable. And you know, it's very Grecian, kind of, which is really fun. And I'm wearing Tiffany earrings, which makes me feel like I don't want to lose one of these. So what does the future hold for this country rock princess? Most agree that it appears very bright for this talented young star. Well, I mean, Taylor Swift is the biggest young star in the world right now. I mean, there's no question. I mean, I don't even know who her competition would be at this point. Taylor's earning something around 50 million dollars a year right now. She's really playing in the big leagues and this is someone who's doing it without taking off her clothes, without doing raunchy sex pop videos, and without being linked to a major A-lister at the moment. I think it's extraordinary and says a lot about what the market really wants, that she's been rewarded so generously for what she's bringing to the table. What makes her music so popular is, in my mind, the relatability of it. Everyone's been in that love situation. Everyone's been in that heartbreak situation. And that's what Taylor writes about. She writes from the heart and people just feel in touch with her. Right now, Taylor Swift is pretty much in a category by herself, just in terms of record sales, in terms of global recognition, popularity. I mean, she's ubiquitous everywhere right now. And I don't see any reason that that won't continue as long as she wants it to. Her appeal is just getting stronger. And I would argue that as we see kind of pop music going to a more extreme place, you know, with Lady Gaga, or even some of the kind of provocative nature of Rihanna or Katy Perry, there's kind of a backlash amongst a lot of people who want to be able to go to a concert with their young teenage child and not be worried about them watching a simulated sex act on stage. I think Taylor's appeal is that she really is mainstream and she's safe. You know, she's safe for everybody to come to with their families. You don't have to worry about what she's going to sing about. And she's relatable to all ages. I think in 10 years time, Taylor will undoubtedly be one of the biggest music stars in the world. She will have only just turned 30, really. She's got so much more to give. She's an incredible songwriter. Country music stars often have more sustainability than pop stars as well. If you look at someone like Faith Hill or even McIntyre. So in fact, Taylor Swift could be in the charts for another three or four decades. It'll be interesting to see what the years bring, but I think she's going to follow very much in the tracks of Beyonce, who married young and has had a very kind of safe and consistently kind of upstanding lifestyle. I think Taylor's very much going to go in that direction. What is there really to stop her? She's got a big fan base in the country and Western world. She's got a big fan base in the pop world. And if she keeps writing these songs that are emotional and from the heart, that's just going to carry on going and going and going. I think for a pop singer, unless you write your own music, it's a very short lifespan. But the fact that Taylor is only 21, she's such a baby. She has plenty of time in the industry and she's such a great lyricist. I think her music may evolve. Perhaps her image might evolve, but I think she'll very much still be on your iPod.