Taylor Swift became the youngest person ever inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame on Monday, joining the institution at 36 during its 56th annual gala at the Music City Center in Nashville. People reported that the 14-time Grammy winner received the honour alongside Lyle Lovett, Bruce Channel, Shawn Camp and Lee Thomas Miller.
Former tourmate Brad Paisley introduced Swift, and Lainey Wilson performed a stripped-back version of “Love Story” in her honour, Variety reported. Swift used her speech to look back at her teenage years learning the craft on Music Row, telling the audience she signed a publishing deal with Sony Publishing at 14 and threw herself into the work.
“I was like a sponge, and I have really curly hair, and it was yellow, so I kind of looked like a sponge too,” she joked, according to Variety. She credited the writers and mentors who shaped her, saying the fundamentals she learned in Nashville still underpin everything she writes.
Swift told the room that songwriters possess an unusual ability to understand people, and that the Nashville community raised her as an artist. “There is no music community like this music community. I know. I checked all the communities,” she said, according to Variety.
The ceremony fell two days after the 20th anniversary of her self-titled debut album, released on October 24, 2006, when she was 16, Consequence reported. Swift closed by saying she would treasure the honour. “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,” she said, according to Parade.
Source: People
