Swift, 36, was one of six inductees on Monday night, and George Strait received the Career Maker Award.
Taylor Swift, 36, was formally inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame on Monday night, October 26, becoming the youngest-ever member of the institution. Country singer Brad Paisley inducted her at the industry gala at the Music City Center in downtown Nashville.
Paisley praised how she rose in Music City. "All of us were like, 'How is this teenager doing this? How is she so brilliant?'" he said. He singled out the Speak Now album, which she wrote all by herself.
Swift, who had opened for Paisley on a summer amphitheater tour, teased him from the stage. "I'm really surprised to see you here, actually, because we've been estranged since 2007," she said. She blamed a tour prank: "He took a tour prank too far." Recalling the crickets that filled her bus, she said, "For months, I couldn't sleep. Just chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp all night."
Lainey Wilson sang a stripped-down acoustic version of "Love Story" as Swift watched. Inductees at this gala traditionally do not perform their own songs, and Swift returned the favour by plugging Wilson's new single. "It's called 'Kinda Love It.' Check it out."
Swift took the three words in the honour's name in turn. Nashville was "the place that I went to in my middle school daydreams." Fame, she said, was "a byproduct of my love for music."
She also looked back on her start. "I was lucky enough to get a publishing deal with Sony Publishing when I was 14, and I just hit the ground running," she told the audience. Songwriting, she said, is a craft learned through repetition. "I think you truly learn a craft when you do it over and over and over," she said. "There is no music community like this music community. I know. I checked all the communities."
In a December 2005 memory, Swift said her mother drove her from Hendersonville High School to Jody Williams Music, where the woman at the front desk had a boyfriend at the time. "Things have gone great for them," she joked. "His full name is Eric Church, just for clarity."
She credited demo producer Nathan Chapman, who recorded her songs in a garden shed and played every instrument on them. "He interpreted my music so intuitively that later on I would fight for him to produce my entire first album," she recalled. Her self-titled debut turned 20 on October 24, two days before the induction.
Swift finished the speech by stressing what the moment meant to her:
"I'm so incredibly honored to be inducted into this sacred club, especially at this point in my life."
Swift was one of six inductees this year, along with Texas troubadour Lyle Lovett, Lee Thomas Miller, Shawn Camp, Bruce Channel and J.I. Allison, a former member of Buddy Holly's Crickets who was inducted posthumously. Country superstar George Strait received the Career Maker Award, which only one other artist has received.
This is her latest songwriting honour. In June, she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York and became the youngest woman ever inducted. The Nashville institution, founded in 1970, has now inducted 254 songwriters.
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