Hey guys, it's Taylor I can't wait to see you guys in Australia New Zealand when we get there on the reputation stadium tour in October and November Until we get there we've put together this TV special for you. Just going through The years and the music and the songs and I can't wait to see you actually in person I Was born in Pennsylvania, I grew up on a Christmas tree farm when I was seven years old My grandmother took me to this local Children's Theater Company. I just thought I want to do that. I want to tell stories onstage that turned into me wanting to sing in karaoke Contests and try out for different things in sing national anthems So that's when I got it in my mind that there was this magical place called Nashville where dreams come true And Faith Hill got discovered and I thought to myself, Nashville Well, I've got to go there and so I started this relentless campaign with my parents to get them to move I had these demo CDs of me singing like Dolly Parton songs and Dixie Chicks songs But we started taking trips like my mom would drive me up and down music row and I'd like get out and I run up to the door and I'd go in and I talked the receptionist and I'd Like look over the desk and say like hi. I'm Taylor I'm 11. I want a record deal. Here's my CD. I could give you a call. That would be awesome when I started writing songs, it became something that I needed every day just writing songs playing guitar music was something that was so necessary for me to Be happy on a daily basis And when I first started playing guitar, I would play for hours and hours until my fingers were bleeding and I didn't even notice and my mom would just be like you need to put the guitar down because dinner is on the table and You can play afterward but homework and dinner are priorities too. You know, I just fell in love with it fell hard I knew that it it wasn't going to be simple. It's not it's not like that It's not like you just play in front of one person and it like and everything happens for you I knew that if it was ever going to happen for me to work for every single stepping stuff So I just wanted to learn as much as I could I had this showcase at the Bluebird Cafe ironically the place where Faith Hill got discovered and I Played my guitar and sang a bunch of songs that I've written Just acoustically and all of these record labels were in the audience we invited all these labels so it was one guy in the audience named Scott Borchetta and At that time he worked for Universal Records so he came up to me after the show, and he said I want you on my record label and I want you to write all your own music and I'm gonna call you and explain my situation and So I go home that night thinking. Oh my god, I'm gonna give the record deal with Universal Records That's amazing and I get a call from him later that week and he does. Hey, so Good news is I want you on my record is bad news is that I don't actually have a record label yet And So he proceeds to Just just explain to me that He has always dreamed about having his own record label Leaving Universal to create a record label He doesn't have a building. He doesn't have a name for it. He doesn't have a staff. He doesn't have funding He just has this dream to do it So he says we just please waitress and for some reason I was willing to wait for that Because I knew that if I could be a part of building something from the ground up of being the first artist on a brand new record label, even if we didn't have Furniture in our lobby, you know or a sign outside of the building That would be okay with me as long as I could do something really adventurous and bold So I signed my record deal with Scott Borchetta And I was making an album full of songs that I had written by myself. There was no inclination that this was gonna work out But we really believed in it Putting out my first single was Just such a cool experience cuz I just didn't know what was gonna happen I remember putting the physical CD singles into envelopes to mail out to radio with my mom I got to go on radio tour and use your tour You think tour bus no rental car Taurus me in the backseat How's it goin, how are you I'm doing wonderful going from radio station to radio station to radio station And every time I would go to a new radio station I would play in the conference room for a couple of DJ's and I would like beg them To put me on the air and it worked Favorites My album sold 39,000 in the first week and then over time it started to sell like this Then something really crazy started to happen. I was opening up for every single country headliner Imaginable. I was opening up for Brad Paisley George Strait Kenny Chesney Tim McGraw like all these people had always wanted to open up shows For I was a nervous wreck I'd rehearsed Non-stop over and over again, but I loved it. Those were some of my favorite times This is the first one. I'm never gonna open it for Tim McGraw say you know what? The first night I'm freaking out and so I just kept opening up for people in every single night afterward I would sign autographs in the parking lot and I was like 16. I had all this energy I was like, what am I gonna do after a show sign grabs in the parking lot? When The Fearless album came out it sold 596 thousand in the first week, and I was really happy about that Considering the first record. I was like freaking out about selling 39 thousand in the first week selling 596 thousand in the first week was quite an improvement she wears Yeah, I had been dreaming about doing my first headlining tour I think since I was four years old and sing me random songs that I had made up On top of a picnic table on my parents vacations embarrassing them yeah, I had always wanted to put together a show that incorporated theater and storytelling and the songwriting and what I saw in my head when I was writing these songs and just imagery That had filled my mind when I was putting these songs together. I Finally got a chance to do that in March of 2009 when I was putting together my first tour of the fearless tour You guys this tour has been the best experience of my entire life The stage for the fearless tour was something that I spent a lot of time designing with Jonathan Smeaton my stage designer I wanted the stage to be part of the picture and part of the visual not just Something we were standing on this comes out during love story and it's gonna be projected where these look like castles, right? And so we've been able to turn this whole thing into a story rehearsing for the fearless tour took about a month to Have everybody whipped into shape and have everything like Flowing into each other and we created all this video content we created Costumes we created all of these different little segues that were gonna happen in between songs And I wanted the show to just never stop going. I didn't want it to be like, you know, and end of song and then you know You have to wait like three minutes while I'm obviously backstage changing and there's like nothing going on on stage I wanted there to be something going on at all times so that you knew where to direct your focus Like it just needed to be very clearly mapped out. What store was being told at what point in time? when I finished the first song every single night and just stood there at the end of the I could always Hear and feel what that crowd is going to be because So many times I could just I could like feel how loud the crowd was cuz they would out loud it's just a roar just this uncontrollable war and that moment is just So unforgettable standing there every night just like and they're looking around and I just remember thinking Like this is the feeling that a dream of having standing in front of a crowd that looks like this and sounds like this it just um Makes everything worthwhile Makes every early morning worthwhile. It makes everything just make sense It's fear the Grammy goes to Taylor Swift You I Had a lot of people who Would say oh, she's an 18 year old girl. There's no way that she actually carried her weight in those writing sessions and That was a really harsh criticism. I felt because You know, there was no way I could prove them wrong other than to write my entire next record solo so I went in and I made an album called Speak Now there is not one single co-writer on the entire thing and It's an album that I'm really proud of it choose the last We just did a group picture on the new stage that we just saw for the very first time I've been working on Planning this drawing it getting it ready For six months and to see it for the first time is just insanely I can't believe it It's so beautiful. What I wanted the stage to do is just become a million different things and Showcase a bunch of different dimensions of the songs and it seems like it's the perfect place to do that. Yeah everything You guys I never imagined that we would get to play our first show in Nashville but it's the most amazing feeling to get to have all our friends and family here to share what we could Hold up in this arena doing for the last month It was amazing to get to go to Singapore and Hong Kong in Korea The fans in Asia are amazing, they're so passionate The fact that the shows were all sold out it just it really meant a lot today. People are definitely gonna see this, right It's not gonna be lost on Okay Okay doing this Doing this for the ban In Asia There was this this gag at the end of the show where I would fall back off the back of the stage way up high ten feet down onto a mattress It was pretty nerve-wracking because it's kind of scary and I'd always get like my arms and get kind of scratched up at The end of the night every single time I'm walking up the stairs and I'm like You're gonna have to fall back. You're gonna have to fall back turn around fall back do it do it Just you've got to do it. I used to talk myself into it Put up to the show I'd be kind of proud of myself for doing it Road Studios and I'm freaking out pretty sure the band's about to be freaking out too We end up having the opportunity to go to Abbey Road and record a live session It was amazing to get to go and be there and experience it some of my band members were a little more having a religious experience than others and It was just really cool to be there because you know so much iconic music has been made there The European fans were really passionate. It's just so great to look out into a crowd Some people really into the music it was unbelievable there was a stage that we had out in the crowd and every night I would walk to and from that stage to do the acoustic set It was always amazing to go through the crowd and really see people and meet people and you'd be surprised how much you can Establish a connection with someone just through eye contact On the world tour I was playing ukulele every night on fearless It's fun to play it like that I'd like to take songs that people have heard and Kind of putting a little bit of a twist on it to where it's still the song that they've heard But it's just a little bit in good different production I Really had the time of my life in Europe. It was just a wonderful experience for Best country songs Taylor Swift for me Thank you to anyone who voted for this song that is so incredible of you for doing that This is I Wow This is another Grammy I want to thank I want to thank Scott Borchetta at Big Machine Records for letting me create this album and and just and believing in this song and putting it out at Radio when when we put this out as a single people were kind of a few people said like really you're gonna you're gonna do that Wow, okay and and my label stood by it and and country radio played it a lot which was wonderful and I want to thank Robert Allen everyone at 13 management and My mom and dad and my brother who are here and my band who's here who dressed up in? Crazy 30s outfits for the video. This is Unbelievable. I am so happy right now. Thank you to all the Grammy voters everyone who clapped when I won this. Thank you so much We'll see y'all later. Thank you The next record read it started out I was making country music and I was getting the ideas exactly the same way I always did and they were coming to me in the same way as and then few months in they started coming to me as Pop melodies and I could not fight it and I just embraced it I just wanted to see what it was like to work with Max Martin because you know the idea of Max Martin is so Enoch Enoch mad like Mysterious you're like what is what does he look? Like? What does he talk? Like, what does he wear a cloak like? And I just wanted to know I was like, you know, he's what is a Swedish pop mastermind. What does that look like? Does he does he know how to play guitar? Like what is it? I called him and he came over to my house and I said I love what you do. I want to combine it with what I do and I I'm a little scared, but I'm not really that scared because I think it could be great I'm not gonna second-guess this this is just a gut feeling I think it's gonna work the one and we did three songs two of which were I Knew you were trouble and we are never ever getting back together And that was as much as I was kind of allowed to work with max on that progress. I Was also attached to be in their country artists at that point It's really like you build these relationships with radio and with the community and that's it's sacred We labeled red a country album and it came out and it was universally agreed on that The songwriting was great, but it was also noted that it was a little bit multiple personality, which it was I Think from the road tour fans can expect The unexpected. I think I really like the element of surprise and I love incorporating that into the shows. I like for These tours to be completely different from every single one we've done I think that the visuals Kind of portrayed on this tour will be I guess more grown-up and and a little bit more mature than things We've done in the past and I think on my previous albums and my previous tours I've really liked to operate in the element of fantasy and I think that this tour Incorporates a little bit more reality into the visuals, which is nice I Got nominated for album of the year with red going up to it, you know, everybody comes up to you and they're like oh, you got this you're gonna win you're gonna win and I wish they wouldn't do that because Cuz you don't know if you're gonna win and someone else could very well win and someone else very well Did we don't make music so we can like win a lot of awards? But you have to take your cues from somewhere if you're gonna continue to evolve and so I went to bed and I woke up at 4:00 in the morning like It's called 1989 I've been making a tea since Pop. I'm just gonna do that. I'm calling it a pop record. I'm starting tomorrow I've been working on a new album for two years With red I have learned that I really do like collaborating with different producers But I think with 1989 I decided I was gonna narrow down the list. I went in with max I asked him to co-executive produced it with me and we were gonna make a sonically cohesive record again We were gonna approach it the way I approached fearless. This album is called 1989 You To Taylor Swift I don't like your little games don't like you're tilted stage the Role you made me play of the fool. No, I don't like you Me too when the album came out it's legitimately an album about finding love throughout all the noise and so it starts with the noise and how that all makes you feel and how it makes you feel when like when people are saying things about you that we feel like aren't true and and living your life sort of in defiance of that in defiance of your reputation and then It's sort of in the middle of the album You kind of realize the case early What how much do I really value that like if you can find something real in spite of a bad reputation? Then isn't that what matters the most And then there are these moments where it's very like oh my god What is my reputation? Actually makes the person that I like not want to get to know me. That's a reality that could happen And so when I was thinking about that that part of it where like your reputation and your like how real is it? well It's only real if it stops you from Getting to know someone where you feel like you could connect with them in a really real way Are you ready for it? I Hope you guys enjoyed the show and I hope I get to see you at the actual show in October November in Australia and New Zealand. So until then bye guys You
