Paul: Theres no big fancy introduction, I dont think we really need one. We just start talking.
Taylor: I mean, yeah, we could do that.
We could do that, right?
Yeah. I mean, did you have a fancy introduction planned?
No?
Did you have a song prepared?
Do we really, well, funny you should mention - no, no song. No song prepared, thats not gonna -
Not at all? And I came all the way to Canada.
Focusing on the year 1989, it was a great year. Do you know what the Best Picture that year was?
I do not.
The movie that won Best Picture in 1989: Rain Man.
Amazing!
Good movie, right?
Fantastic.
Good movie. The Album of the Year, do you know the that won a Grammy? Its the first time that this has happened, really, to you?
Yeah.
In an interview about an album called 1989?
Well, I just figured youd just want to show off your knowledge.
Well, its the internet, its not really showing off.
Okay.
George Michaels Faith!
Amazing!
Album of the Year.
This is actually educational.
Its pretty good, right? But I was happy that it wasnt, like, there werent too sketchy things. Those were really good things that stand up. Rain Man is still great to watch, Faith is still a fantastic album.
Like a Prayer by Madonna came out in 1989, one of the most influential pop songs and music videos of all time.
You were born.
I was in 1989 for two weeks.
Yeah, thats okay. Thats okay.
But it still happened in that year.
It happened in 1989. Youve only released a studio album four times previous to this, so this is something that doesnt happen to you all that often. So, the title of it -
Its really important.
The theme of it is really important, right? When was the moment you decided it was gonna be 1989?
Actually, no one... this is why I like talking to you, because no one has ever come at it from this angle and actually asked me that specific question. Its actually a really interesting moment. I remember exactly when I decided that I was gonna call it 1989. It was the night of the Grammys this year. After the Grammys I didnt go to any afterparties or anything, I kind of wanted to go home and eat In-N-Out Burger with my friends. I remember going home and playing a lot of the new music I had recorded for some of my backup singers and one of my best friends. We were all sitting in the kitchen and I was playing them all this music, and they were just saying, ‘you know, this is very eighties. It’s very clear to us that this is so eighties.’ We were just talking and talking about how it’s kind of a rebirth in a new genre, how that’s a big bold step, how, kind of, starting a part of your career over. When they left that night, I just had this very clear moment of, ‘it’s gotta be called 1989. Its gotta be called that. Were talking about creative rebirth, my birth year, the album is eighties-influenced. I didnt know I was doing that but I was doing that.
You didnt know you were doing that?
I didnt mean to do it, I just was doing it. And so, then, after that, I really was able to focus on the, kind of, eighties sonic concept. And then it really came together as a very sonically cohesive project.
Were you still writing songs in the traditional way, with a guitar?
Yes and no, I mean, some of them I wrote on piano, some of them I wrote on guitar. Some of them I would think of some synth line in my head and sing it into my phone and send it to my co-writers and say, ‘do you think this would sound cool?’
Like, without words, just singing the, kind of, synth line?
Yeah! Or singing a drum beat over top of it, and I would send it to them and Id go, ‘I don’t have the right keyboard to make this sound in my house. I just have a piano and a guitar, but let me play it for you on piano and let you know what I think the bassline should be, and we can start there.’ Or it would be a first line of a first verse, or it would be, sort of, an image that I wanted to create a feeling around. We would just start with this image I had, or a story. It was a lot different than making any of my other albums.
It was?
Yeah.
Biggest difference was what?
The biggest difference was that I didnt have any, I didnt have any boundaries around me production-wise. You know, one of my favorite things about country music is that it taught me how to tell stories. Coming up in the Nashville songwriting community was the greatest thing that couldve ever happened to me because it taught me how to weave a story together with very, um, very detailed, personal details but also some, kind of, like, poetic, purple imagery. I love, kind of, I love how it all came about with my career, but at this point, it felt like I wanted to go and run in a direction that I had never run in before, which was, I wanna be able to use whatever instruments I want, whatever drum sounds I want, whatever vocal stylings I want. I want to build and layer things, and I dont want someone to say, well, this isnt country. You know? And for me to be trying to prove that it was. So the reason this felt like a much more free experience was because I was able to write songs without the worry people would say it wasnt in the genre it was supposed to be in. So in labelling it pop and just calling it what it was, you know, when you make a pop album nobodys gonna look at it and say, well, thats not pop. So I didnt have any restraints on me.
Jason Aldean recently said something about how youre not gonna hear him writing a song about being a Wall Street stock broker because he doesnt even know where Wall Streets at, and that was the -
Hes gotta know where that is.
I think he-
Its in New York.
Thats where he keeps his money.
Hes gotta know. He knows where its at.
I think he was trying to say, just why -
I get what hes trying to say, though. Sorry, I was just, like, my dad is a stock broker who wouldve just been, like, his brain would be, like, 
I understand that thats his life and talking about, this is where I grew up, what I grew up knowing. What you grew up knowing is much different. Its international.
Yeah.
Its the world. Youve been traveling the world for a long time.
I completely understand what he was saying there, because, I mean, with me, its the same thing. Its like, as my life has changed, I need to continue to write about it, and I need to continue to write about even the things that change, like moving to New York and, you know, focusing more on my girlfriends rather than boyfriends. Like, these are things that are, kind of, the focal point of this new album. And as much of when I was in high school, I would sing about what my life was, which was, you know, sneaking out at night, and driving in trucks with your first boyfriend, and falling in love, and that, kind of, innocent summer romance thing, small towns, dirt roads. That was actually my life in high school. Its not anymore. So if I were to continue to write songs about that, I feel like it would be very disingenuous, and as a songwriter, thats the exact opposite of the goal Im trying to accomplish.
In listening to the songs Ive heard already, theyre still, theyre very much story songs. You tell a story in each one. Theres a beginning, a middle, and an end, and thats something that you focus on.
Definitely. I mean, I think thats kind of engrained in me, and thats the one part of my songwriting that I dont think should change as everything else does. I think that my fans have gotten used to receiving my diary entries every two years, and getting that album and going, oh, this is what shes been through the last two years.
I meet a bunch of people who are in the public eye, but not quite like, theres nobody in the public eye like you. Theres a few on the planet, and theres nothing that could prepare you for that. Am I right? Theres nothing in life that could prepare you for that.
I feel really lucky because I dont feel like I was shot out of a cannon, you know? A lot of people have their first single come out and it is everywhere, and all of a sudden they have a triple-platinum single, and theres all this anticipation about their album and then, all of a sudden, people start to tear them down, and it all happens over the course of six months to a year. My career build, I mean, were going on, its about nine years now since I put out my first album?
The record label was signed in 2005, right? The record deal rather, sorry.
Were going on almost ten years, so its been a really, really gradual arc, and that doesnt mean that sometimes it doesnt feel that its at a crazy fever pitch that no one could ever prepare you for, but as much as you could possibly be prepared for it, I feel like time has kind of prepared me for it. I mean, some days I wake up and am absolutely overwhelmed by how abnormal my life is. Its not normal to have security with you wherever you go. Its not normal to have assistants. Its not normal to have hair and makeup every day. Its not normal -
To give you people heat for holding a cat a certain way on the streets of New York.
That cat loves being held like that!
I know! No, I know! But you cant do anything without somebody at some point on some website, well, the cat doesnt, this isnt right for the cat to be out like that.
The cat loves it. The cat, heres the thing -
Is that Olivia?
Yeah, thats Olivia. Yeah, youre right, exactly. And when everything that you do is debated upon, scrutinized, questioned, everybody feels entitled to ask you why you did everything. There are days where I feel really, really okay with that, honestly, but then there are days where I just, am kind of overwhelmed by all of it, and I think that thats okay. I try to encourage my fans that they dont have to feel confident every day, they dont have to feel happy every day, they dont have to feel pretty every day, they dont have to wanted every day. That they shouldnt put added, extra pressure on themselves to feel happy when theyre not, you know? I think being honest with yourself emotionally is really important.
When you signed that record deal in 2005, is there any advice you would go back and give to that girl that was signing that day? Or because the slow and gradual build it kind of worked out? I mean, its obviously all worked out okay. What advice are you gonna give to somebody like that?
I dont think Id wanna give her too much advice, I would... oh, I think I would tell her to laugh more. Just, you know, if you laugh at yourself first its less funny when other people make fun of you. I would also explain to her the actual definition of feminism, because I didnt know it when I was younger. I think those are two important things for girls to know, going into this business or going into life itself. But all the other things, all the really intense, times I felt serious pain or rejection or humiliation or embarrassment, those have all produced the songs Im the most proud of. There was this crazy circumstance that happened where I wrote this song Mean about the harshest criticisms Ive ever gotten. It was brutal. And that song ended up winning two Grammys.
Spectacular, yeah. In hindsight you dont , but if you knew something was coming, if someone said to you, theres something coming around the corner, its brutal, youre gonna want to, you know, hoodie for three weeks, youre never gonna want to deal with it. But the result will be Album of the Year.
Oh my God, youd do anything for that!
Fair enough. Like I said earlier, this is one of the things you dont get to do all the time. You get to go on stage a lot, you get to be interviewed a lot, all of these things happen to you, but album releases dont happen a lot.
They dont.
They dont happen a lot.
Im really soaking it in.
Yeah? Do you still get as excited? I know you were saying youre more proud of this than any of them.
Yeah. Im so excited, I mean, honestly. Because having spent the last year and a half, just kind of living my life on my own terms and not, not dating, not focusing on really anything else other than figuring out the album I wanted to make, theres such an incentive for me, like, Im so proud of it. And Ive always been proud of my albums, but theres something about this one, where I feel like I actually did something different this time. I actually made something that is cohesive and fits together and has its own sound and something I was so focused on. And I can be focused on my fans, and I can, you know, like, Im not tired right now during this interview. Like, Im not distracted, Im just, kind of, Im just, really taking it in.
The highs that you get on stage, almost nobody gets to experience, what you experience on stage. Which, again on the planet. You have one of those jobs thats very rare. Whats second to that? Whats the thing that comes the closest to the electricity that you feel when youre on stage?
I would say its different all the time, but right now its, like, seasonal stuff. Like, I get as excited about being on stage as I get about cozy things. Because just the idea of seasons changing. This is the time of year where Im so out-of-control excited about the fact that its fall. Guess whats next? Winter.
Yes, so youre gonna have a hard time getting anybody here excited about that.
Its two seasons that I love, and I can bake stuff all the time, and then I can give it to people. I can try out new recipes, I can wear sweaters, I can wear knee socks. I could even buy sweaters for my cats to wear.
Okay.
I could do any of that, because its that kind of season!
But thats almost as exciting as being on stage in front of forty thousand people?
You have to understand that if youre choosing your first place as being something like, ahhhhhhh, the second place has to be something that evens that out, which is, like, baking day with your friends.
But your answer really is, I dont need another high like that, because thats the one I get by going on stage.
I think that is actually my revised answer.
You mentioned feminism. You have, almost by happy accident, become a real icon for girls and women, and you said earlier that that would be one of the things you might make sure you would change if you were to go back and talk to younger you, is to, kind of, narrow down that definition, or define the definition of feminism. Do you realize, kind of, how great that it is for young girls to see what youre doing? I mean, you get to experience that , right? When you talk to parents of young girls, right?
Thats awesome. Its interesting because I think that feminism is such an important conversation to be having. Especially right now, because with girls out there in the world living their lives, knowing what it means is so important, because all it means is that they feel they should be treated exactly the same way as guys. They should be given equal opportunities and rights. And I think the more people like Lena talk about it, like, Lorde and Emma Watson talk about it, and the fact that its becoming, sort of, a conversation that is top-of-mind in the media. I think its so incredible. Ive always made music so I could feel camaraderie with my fans, not in a way that was trying to cater to, kind of, any male fantasy, and that wasnt on purpose, thats just been what has felt natural to me. When asked early on about feminism in my career, I just, I think I was probably fifteen the first time I was asked about it. And so I would just say, I dont talk about politics, I dont really understand that stuff yet, so I guess Im just gonna say Im not. And I wish that when I was younger I wouldve known that its simply hoping for gender equality.
Probably not so fair of the interviewer to ask a fifteen-year-old about that.
You know, thats an interesting point to make. But I think that, in the media, its very interesting to witness, on a daily basis. You know, you go online, and we all see these gossip blogs every single time we log on, because were curious and thats the society we live in. But youll see these polls, like, vote on who has a better butt! This woman or this woman? And you never see who has a better butt: this man or this man? It just never happens. Whos the hotter mama: this woman or this woman? Its not, like, whos the sexiest dad: this man or this man? You just dont see it. And people are allowed to pit women against each other and vote, and they think its an innocent thing, when really its kind of warping your mind that, you know. And if a young girl logs on and votes, its like shes going, oh my God, if that girl in my class is pretty and smart, then maybe everyones comparing me to her, and maybe I should hate her. And thats just, its feeding this negativity and I really think that with girls, kind of, banding together, in music, in culture, in movies, whatever. I think its nice to see people actually cheer each other on and girls be friends with each other, because hopefully that will kind of bleed into the classroom, and the playground, and the campus, and all that.
I know it seems like disposable entertainment for adults, but its not only adults who are seeing this stuff.
Its mostly not adults.
Its mostly not adults.
Its mostly very impressionable kids and young girls who are still forming their ideas of who they actually are. And to warp their opinions of other girls, that just adds anxiety to their life that they dont need.
This kind of brings me to talking about your legacy, and I know, I think five albums in its appropriate to start talking a little bit about that. Im guessing that you try very hard to make sure that the music you make, you release the things you take part in enough, that theyll all be able to stand up. Not just to the test of time, say, sonically or whatever, but that you can continue to be proud of this, is that right?
Yeah, its completely right, its dead-on. Ive always had this thing where I think about what, if Im lucky enough to have grandkids someday, what they would say. If they looked back on pictures, and videos, and things like that, and Id sure theyd laugh at me and make fun of my awkwardness and things like that. But I would never want to embarrass them. Its interesting because its like the whole role model question, like, are you a role model? Do you think about the little kids in the front row when youre doing all the things youre doing in this life? I think thats an unnecessary pressure to put on yourself, but its easier when you make it about your own life, your own legacy, when you, kind of, bring it in house, and youre, like, what if I have a five-year-old someday? And what if someday my ten-year-old goes online for the first time? Like, what do I want her to see about me?
Thats a pretty good way to look at it.
Its something that happens very naturally where if youre, kind of, just taking accountability and responsibility for your own actions, its kind of a natural thing that happens, where, you know, all of a sudden you have parents coming up and thanking you, and youre just, sort of, like, hm, well, youre welcome. Where you were just, kind of, trying to live a good life, because I think, you know, you dont want to feel like youre the national president of the babysitters club, but you do wanna try to do good things, and make ripples, and good echoes in society, and culture, and all that.
But you are doing that, and in the music that Ive heard already, man, are people gonna get a kick out of hearing this, and experiencing it live. Its great, congratulations on this.
Good. Thank you!
Its epic. The albums out.
Thank you! Its great to talk to you, as always.
As always. Thanks, Taylor.
Awesome.
Nice job.
Thanks! Youre so good!
Thank you, thank you for doing this.
I always end up telling you stuff that Ive never thought to say in interviews.