Taylor Swift says she keeps her footing at the top by reminding herself she walked there on purpose. In a new Recording Academy "Icon Sessions" interview, the singer describes a key tactic when fame starts to feel "unmanageably big": telling herself, "You chose this every day… and I decided not to [opt out] because I love it that much." As long as she can keep making music, she tells Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. in a 50-minute conversation, per People, "everything that comes with this" is ultimately worth it.
Swift, a 14-time Grammy winner and recent Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee who just released her first true country song in years, says she's embracing her "country roots more and more" as she looks back on how her superstar career began, per Rolling Stone. She notes she was 10 when she began "obsessively thinking about and planning" for her future in music, starting with an appearance at the Bluebird Cafe, where her idol Faith Hill was discovered, per USA Today. She studied song structure and started writing herself, with the goal to remember "my human experience."
She says it was in "dealing in emotional truths" that she was able to break into country music as a teen, despite early critics claiming she lacked a "valid perspective" for the genre. As for how she approaches critics these days, "sometimes when people are mocking me, it's really fun to mock them back," says the self-described "English teacher." "Sometimes I like to just use words that they have to look up in order to talk s--- about." If you can accept that releasing music isn't a route to "universal validation" and still feel compelled to do it, Swift says, then you're in it "for the right reasons."
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
