Taylor Swift is feeling nostalgic for her country roots. In a career-spanning conversation with Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. for the institution’s Icon Sessions series, the pop superstar reflected on her early years in Nashville.
“I love my country roots more and more the further along this path I get and I want to honor them more and more,” Swift said. “I feel more tied to them, more loyal to them … The people that shaped who I am as an artist and as a writer, that all happened in Nashville,” she added.
The superstar named one of the musicians that influenced her deeply. “I had heard that Faith Hill got discovered at the Bluebird Cafe,” Swift recalled of the venue where was first discovered as a 13-year-old. “I started learning about the Bluebird Cafe, made it a personal life goal to get to perform there.”
Throughout the conversation, which focused on Swift’s prolific career as a songwriter over the last 20 years, the superstar often reflected on her self-titled debut album and her first single “Tim McGraw.” “If I look back at the song ‘Tim McGraw,’ there are actually sort of hints at everything that was gonna happen in the next 20 years,” Swift told Mason Jr.
It’s not the first time Swift had felt nostalgic about her country roots. Earlier this year, the singer-songwriter released her first undeniably country song in years with “I Knew It, I Knew You.” It became a historic country hit as the first song by a woman to have every country radio station reporting to Mediabase agreeing to play the song in the first week. In a note shared in the industry trade Country Aircheck, Swift wrote, “Man, it’s been a while! Thank you for making history with me. To infinity and beyond.”
Coincidentally (Is it ever really a coincidence with Taylor?), Swift’s realignment with the genre that made her famous comes as her self-titled debut celebrates its 20-year anniversary. Memory was a big theme for the superstar’s Icon Sessions with the Academy, which she made clear when she performed in front of a live audience of songwriters and composers at the Grammy Museum.
“It’s songs that are connected to each other by the common theme of being about memory and reliving certain detailed memories of your life and the significance of those memories,” Swift said before diving into a touching medley of “I Knew It, I Knew You,” “August,” and “All Too Well” on the same piano she used during the surprise song set of the Eras Tour. Swift added: “If I was still on the Eras tour, I would do
this [medley].”
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