{"id":947958,"date":"2026-10-27T08:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T08:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/947958\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T08:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T08:48:13","slug":"taylor-swift-speaks-at-nashville-songwriters-hall-of-fame-induction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/947958\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Swift Speaks at Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTaylor Swift<\/a> looked back on her earliest days crafting songs in Music City as she was inducted Monday into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame<\/a>, becoming its youngest member at 36. Swift was inducted by former tourmate Brad Paisley<\/a>, whom she teased, and serenaded by Lainey Wilson<\/a>, whom she praised, before launching into a lengthy speech about what she learned in the trenches of Music Row as a teenager.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was lucky enough to get a publishing deal with Sony Publishing when I was 14, and I just hit the ground running,\u201d she told the audience at the Music City Center ceremony. \u201cI was like a sponge, and I had really curly hair and it was yellow, so I kind of looked like a sponge, too,\u201d she quipped.<\/p>\n

\n\tPraising the town that she said raised her, Swift said, \u201cThere is no music community like this music community. I know. I checked all the communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t(L-R) Lyle Lovett, Shawn Camp, Lee Thomas Miller, Taylor Swift, George Strait and Bruce Channel attend the 56th Nashville Songwriters Hall Of Fame Gala at Music City Center on October 26, 2026 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Kevin Mazur\/Getty Images for TAS)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEd Rode<\/p>\n

\n\tSwift was being inducted alongside Lyle Lovett, Bruce Channel, Shawn Camp and Lee Thomas Miller (plus the late J.I. Allison, of Buddy Holly and the Crickets). Also being honored with a special award at the ceremony was country superstar George Strait, who was getting the Career Maker Award, something only one other artist has received, in honor of what he has accomplished for others performing their material.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe tradition at Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame ceremonies is for the inductees not to sing or play themselves but rather to enjoy a performance of one of their songs by another notable star or major figure. In this case it was Lainey Wilson doing a stripped-back version of \u201cLove Story,\u201d to which Swift offered some reciprocal support by getting in a plug for Wilson\u2019s new single.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou know, I first of all want to say thank you to Lainey Wilson, who I just think is one of the coolest people in the world,\u201d Swift said, \u201cfor saying yes and doing that. And I\u2019ve had her new single on repeat. It just puts me in the best mood. It\u2019s called \u2018Kinda Love It.\u2019 Check it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPaisley gave an introduction in which he recalled marveling at how she went from proving she was a star with her first two albums and proving once and for all that she was a songwriting all-timer with her entirely self-penned third album. \u201cAll of us were like, \u2018How is this teenager doing this? How is she so brilliant?\u2019 And then she goes off and really put her feelings into something that is 100% hers and writes the \u2018Speak Now\u2019 album all by herself,\u201d he reminisced. \u201cIt\u2019s an amazing thing to watch her evolution from somebody who realized this all starts with a song to (being able to) take that exact thing and change the world with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn turn, Swift turned the laudatory mood more light-hearted as she recalled the days when she opened for Paisley on a summer amphitheater tour between her first and second albums. He and his band and his opening acts would always famously play prans on each other, and Swift suggested it might have gone a bit too next-level by the end.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBrad Paisley, thank you so much for that induction. I\u2019m really surprised to see you here, actually,\u201d she said, \u201cbecause we\u2019ve been estranged since 2007. I think you know why. Crickets. He took a tour prank too far. Filled my entire tour bus with live crickets. Thousands of them. Oh my God. For months, I couldn\u2019t sleep. Just chirp\u2026 chirp\u2026 chirp.\u201d A pause, and then, again: \u201cChirp \u2014 all night. I considered buying a pet lizard to eradicate the problem. It was a dark time. But you know what? You did such an amazing job with that introduction, I think we can let bygones be bygones. Thank you. Yeah, I think we\u2019re good now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGetting into the serious grist of her speech, Swift focused on the three words that make up the primary name of her honor \u2014 \u201cNashville,\u201d \u201cSongwriters\u201d and \u201cFame\u201d \u2014 and devoted individual time to each of them.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe said that even as a young child, songwriting was \u201cwhat I centered my entire life around,\u201d and Nashville became \u201cthe place that I went to in my middle school daydreams. It was the place where all the wisdom that I wished to acquire existed in one place. \u2026 And it ended up being all of that and more. It ended up being everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tTaylor Swift attends the 56th Nashville Songwriters Hall Of Fame Gala at Music City Center on October 26, 2026 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Kevin Mazur\/Getty Images for TAS)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKevin Mazur\/Getty Images for TAS<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for the fame part, Swift described that as almost incidental, yet also almost all-consuming, as \u201ca byproduct of my love for music. \u2026 It\u2019s why a lot of people know the words to my music, which is awesome. It\u2019s also why there\u2019s these daily random doses of chaos that just pop up in my life every once in a while \u2014 every couple of hours. That can be weird, but I have tools in place in my mind that help me navigate that and get back to true north when life feels so bizarre. Those tools are my memories,\u201d and she suggested that \u201cthe memories that I visit most frequently when I need to return back to some semblance of remembering what normalcy is and why I do this\u201d are from her early years in Nashville.<\/p>\n

\n\tSwift credited songwriting sessions as a kid as places where she \u201clearned which ideas are worth fighting for (and) which ideas are worth letting go of\u2026 I learned how to accommodate when your co-writer has a hangover, or when they\u2019re going to need to talk about their divorce for a really long time before we write anything. One thing that I did learn is that songwriters, although they possess the superhuman ability to understand and interpret the human condition and have insane levels of empathy \u2014 they re just people too. And they are people who in a lot of ways raised me and guided me through my formative years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSwift did a bit of name-dropping, like how she got to know not just Catherine, the woman who worked the front desk at the Jody Williams Music publishing company, but her boyfriend and future husband, Eric Church. She mentioned running up the stairs to the writing room to meet up with frequent collaborator Liz Rose, where she would say, \u201cLiz, this happened at school today\u2026\u201d And then she would run to the garden shed behind the building that was the one-person studio for Nathan Chapman, who played every instrument on her demos and \u201cinterpreted my music so intuitively that later on I would fight for him to produce my entire first album. It was our first album, for both of us. And I am shocked and stunned to say that as of a couple days ago, that album is 20 years old.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn summary, Swift said<\/a>, \u201cIt\u2019s not lost on me how crazy this is. I will cherish it forever because Nashville is the place that honed and polished the thing about myself and the thing about my life that I am the most proud of and the most passionate about\u2026 It just feels like one of those amazing Nashville moments I\u2019m going to revisit on a rainy day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSwift, who was wearing a burgundy floral Raina Vanessa minidress to the ceremony, was getting the honor just four months after she received a similar accolade. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York in June; she was also the youngest writer to receive that honor.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong other presentations during the evening, the late J.I. Allison was inducted by music journalist\/author\/historian Robert K. Oermann, followed by BR5-49 frontman Chuck Mead performing the Crickets classic \u201cThat\u2019ll Be The Day.\u201d Joanie Allison accepted on her husband\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n

\n\tBruce Channel had Kix Brooks of Brooks & Dunn as his presenter, followed by Lee Roy Parnell performing \u201cHey! Baby!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLyle Lovett was celebrated with Hall of Fame songwriter Alger presenting and Kathy Mattea doing the performance honors with \u201cIf I Had A Boat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShawn Camp got his honors via Emmylou Harris and songwriter Verlon Thompson performing \u201cMagnolia Wind,\u201d preceded by a presentation from Jim Lauderdale.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe night was rounded out by Jamey Johnson saluting Lee Thomas Miller with the hit they co-wrote, \u201cIn Color.\u201d Alabama\u2019s Randy Owen did Miller\u2019s presentation.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe show also featured a tribute to the late Bill Cody, the longtime WSM radio personality and Opry emcee who had been the announcer for the Songwriters Hall of Fame gala for years. Hall of Fame member Rivers Rutherford performed his co-written \u201cWhen I Get Where I\u2019m Going\u201d in salute to Cody and all the Hall of Fame members who died in the preceding year \u2014 Dolly Parton, John Anderson, Walt Aldridge, Rory Bourke, Steve Cropper, Jim McBride, Joe Melson and Don Schlitz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taylor Swift looked back on her earliest days crafting songs in Music City as she was inducted Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[113041,49,48,75,72507,341,324522,7223],"class_list":["post-947958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-brad-paisley","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-lainey-wilson","tag-music","tag-nashville-songwriters-hall-of-fame","tag-taylor-swift"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}