Crazier

Today's Taylor Swift song is the song, "Crazier" from the Hannah Montana movie soundtrack.  When this movie came out I loved all of the songs in the movie including, "The Climb."  I even went to Miley's concert because of it.  Alas I was sorely disappointed with her concert, I couldn't hear her very well, her voice was horrible and she had already started to rebel from her Disney ways.  Taylor had come into town around the same time and I wish I'd chosen to go to her concert instead.

This song is a prominent song in the movie.  Taylor tells GAC, "I wrote this in song in hopes that possibly it would be in the movie, but I never thought it would be such a big prominent song.  It's absolutely one of the most exciting things. This song is playing when the main characters of the movie, Miley and Billy Ray are both falling in love with that song as a background.  It's really cool to have that kind of a part in the movie."

But Taylor didn't just write it for the movie, she wrote it a lot earlier.  Who was this song about originally?

Okay that was a trick question, it isn't about anyone per se, but Taylor's idea of love.  Taylor tells GAC in the Behind the Scene's Hannah Montana Movie (Taylor Swift), "I wrote the song crazier when I was thirteen so this song is really a reflection of what I thought love was supposed to be, and you know sometimes you write a love song about what you hope will find you and what you hope you'll find someday, not about what you're actually going through."

I couldn't believe it.  She wrote this song when she was thirteen?  And just pulled it out of her pocket and hadn't released it yet?  I wonder how many songs Taylor has hiding out.  I would love to hear them all, as I am sure many of you would love to too.  The song is very in touch with being in love,

"There's so much more/I've never seen it before/I was trying to fly/But I couldn't find wings/But you came along and you changed everything"

"You showed me something that I couldn't see/You opened my eyes/And you made me believe"

"Baby you showed me what living is for"

"Feels like I'm fallin' and I am lost in your eyes/You make me crazier, crazier, crazier"

I love this song even though I don't love Hannah Montana anymore. It just makes me want to dance around being, "Crazier".  I really hope you find that person that makes you "crazier" Taylor.

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Crazier".

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Stay Beautiful

Today's Taylor Swift song is the meaning of "Stay Beautiful" from her Taylor Swift album.

Who is this song about?

Taylor says his name in the song, CORY.  The song begins by saying "Cory's eyes are like a jungle", his "smiles are like the radio".  "There's pretty girls on every corner/That watch him as he's walking home/Saying, does he know/Will you ever know/You're beautiful". This guy is amazing.  What I really love about this song is Taylor's faith in him, "You're really gonna be someone".  She hopes that "your life leads you back to my door".  What an amazing song for her to write about a boy she knew when she was so young.  She knew him in the 4th grade.  I don't know if I had that kind of insight or faith about people in the 4th grade.

In her 2011 target commercial for her Speak Now album Taylor says,  "So I suppose it all started with my first crush in 4th grade. Cory Robertson. Yeah, he liked the cool girl. She had straight hair. Little did he know, I was writing songs about him after school. Dreaming of one day becoming a country singer. Or, maybe a poet. Or, a professional basketball player. Well, eventually I found my way. For me, 'Speak Now' is the next chapter in my story, and I'm naming names."

Cory Robertson, one of Taylor Swift's first crushes

Cory was one of Taylor's first crushes, but he didn't know and didn't like her back.  Too bad for him. This story reminds me of the time when I was in 4th grade and a boy name Cory Jackson had the hugest crush on me.  He was crazy, he followed me home one day just to see where I lived, and I lived a mile from the school in the opposite direction of him. Then one time he threw a pencil at my neck.  He tortured me relentlessly, but alas that is how 10 year old boys show their affection.

Even though nothing happened because of this crush a wonderful song came out of it. On her website Taylor says "After hearing my songs, a lot of people ask me, `How many boyfriends have you HAD?' And I always tell them that more of my songs come from observation than actual experience. In other words, you don't have to date someone to write a song about them. This is a song I wrote about a guy I never dated! Wow, right? Haha. This song is about a guy I thought was cute, and never really talked to him much. But something about him inspired this song, just watching him."

What a fun song about an elementary school crush!

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Stay Beautiful".

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"Tied Together With a Smile"

Today's Taylor Swift song is "Tied Together With a Smile" from her debut album, Taylor Swift.

Who is this song about?

 

It's about one of her best friends. The reason she wrote it is sad and it illustrates the struggles so many girls go through while growing up.

On her website Taylor said, "One of my best friends is absolutely beautiful. She goes to beauty pageants and wins everything. Girls want to be her and guys want to be with her. I wrote this song the day I found out about her eating disorder. It completely blew my mind, and this one was tough to write, because I wasn't just telling some sad story. This was real. This song is basically about the girls I know, and the difficult things I saw them go through. I've never seen this song as a lecture. It's really about how no matter what my friends go through, I'm always going to love them."

The song is about how her friend is doing this for a boy, and trying to fake her way through it. She's only "Tied Together With a Smile" and she's "coming undone" and cries, but doesn't "tell anyone". She offers some comforting words to her friend at the beginning of the song. She says "Seems the only one who doesn't see your beauty/Is the face in the mirror looking back at you/You walk around here thinking you're not pretty/But that's not true, cause I know you..."

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Tied Together With a Smile".

I definitely know how her friend feels.  I felt that way all the time in high school/middle school, not pretty enough, good enough etc.  It seemed like the boys never noticed me and if I could just do something different they would.  I tried to be happy, but a lot of times I was crying inside and had no one to talk to.  It was horrible.  Absolutely horrible.  But fortunately I came out of it, graduated high school, and went to college.  While in college I found myself, found the confidence I needed.  I wasn't perfectly healed, but so much more than when I was in those formidable years.  I realized that I was fine being me, just the way I was.  I found a perfect guy who thinks that too.  I am so glad Taylor wrote this song.  It really lets girls know that they are special, they don't need to do things to make guys like them. They just need to realize their beauty themselves and realize the face staring back at them in the mirror is beautiful.

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Mary's Song (Oh My My)

Today's Taylor Swift song is the meaning of "Mary's Song (Oh My My)" from her Taylor Swift album.

Who is this song about?

It is about Taylor's neighbors in Nashville, Tennessee who she saw all the time and were a great example of a good relationship and marriage. In the song she starts out when the couple was just seven and nine.  Their "daddies used to joke about the two of us/Growing up and falling in love".  Then they got older and the girl was sixteen and their "daddies used to joke about the two of us" but "they never believed we'd really fall in love". The couple stared dating, had some fights, he proposed, they got married, they had babies and suddenly they are eighty seven and eighty-nine. After each verse the line "oh my my my" is repeated to symbolize the relationship.  Oh my my my, it is quite an achievement to be together like that for so long.

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Mary's Song (Oh My My)"

Taylor said on her website, "I wrote this song about a couple who lived next door to us. They'd been married forever and they came over one night for dinner, and were just so cute. They were talking about how they fell in love and got married, and how they met when they were just little kids. I thought it was so sweet, because you can go to the grocery store and read the tabloids, and see who's breaking up and cheating on each other (or just listen to some of my songs, haha). But it was really comforting to know that all I had to do was go home and look next door to see a perfect example of forever."

I hope that Taylor can find love like this some day.

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A Place In This World

Today is Taylor's 23rd birthday!  Happy Birthday Taylor!  In honor of her birthday the meaning of today's song is "A Place In This World" from her "Taylor Swift" album.

Who is this song about?

It's about Taylor and her desire to find a place in this world through her music.

"I was thirteen when I wrote the song "A Place In This World" and I was just kind of looking around at all these big buildings and all these important people and wondering how I was going to fit in."

In the beginning of the song Taylor is doubtful and unsure of what she wants, "I don't know what I want, so don't ask me/Cause I'm still trying to figure it out."  In the middle of the song she knows that "I'm just a girl, trying to find a place is/This world/And tomorrow's just a mystery, oh yeah."  By the end of the song she is more confident and expresses this thought "Maybe I'm just a girl on a mission/But I'm ready to fly" knowing she needs to find her place in this world.

Click here for lyrics to the song, "A Place In This World". 

What was her place in this world?  What did she want more than anything?

In "A Place In This World" documentary Taylor says, "My big dream is to look out into a crowd of thousands of people and have them singing the words to my songs.  That to me would just be everything I've ever hoped for. I want to make people feel things when they hear my music. I want to give a song to someone who is going through a breakup.  I want to give a song to someone who loves someone and can't tell them, a song for someone who has just fallen in love, and a song for people who are just living their lives." ("A Place In This World" documentary)

Taylor's dream started when she was ten Taylor says, "I think I first realized I wanted to be in country music and to be an artist when I was ten and I started dragging my parents to festivals and fairs and karaoke contests and I did that for about a year before I came to Nashville for the first time." ("A Place In This World" documentary)

Taylor tells CMT Insider in 2008 "I first visited Nashville after I watched this TV program about Faith Hill. It said that she went to Nashville and that's how she made it in country music. So ever since I saw that TV program when I was about 10, I was obsessively, obnoxiously bugging my parents every day -- 'We've got to go to Nashville. Can we go to Nashville? Can we go on a trip to Nashville like now? Or maybe spring break, can we go to Nashville?' Everything led to that. It was like, 'So how was your day at school today, Taylor?" 'Great. Can we go to Nashville?' I would bug them every day about it until finally we planned a trip to Nashville."

 "I was eleven and I had this demo CD of me singing Dixie Chicks and Leann Rimes songs and walked into ever major record label and was like, 'Hey I'm Taylor, I'm eleven, I want a record deal. Call me."

"I think that was the trip that made me realize that I really needed to be different so I went back home to Pennsylvania where I grew up and I started writing songs and I picked up a 12 string guitar and started to play.  That's when I started writing every single day after school.  I would go into town after school and write until nine pm, come home do my homework and that's what I did for about 2.5 years straight." ("A Place In This World" documentary)

Taylor tells CMT Insider in 2008 "After the trip that we initially took and met with people on Music Row, I went home and decided that I needed to learn a few more things before I went back. I learned guitar and I learned songwriting, and I never put it down. I would play guitar for four hours a day, and my mom would make me stop, and we'd have to tape up my fingers. So instead of playing at karaoke bars and things like that where I needed to drag my little karaoke machine everywhere, I would go with my guitar and I would plug it in at coffee houses, and I would bring my little amplifier and plug it in at Boy Scout meetings. I would plug it in at all these different places, little random places where you could play. I now had a portable instrument, and I could go accompany myself, and I could play anywhere I wanted to. That really expanded the places where I could play and my abilities. I played so much that I came a long way in a short period of time."

She still tried to make it in Nashville, and did not give up. "When I was about 12, we started going to Nashville and taking trips every two months or so, going to Nashville for a week trying to meet songwriters, trying to get my foot in the door at different places. Eventually, we scored this meeting with RCA Records when I was 13. I went into RCA, and I pulled out my guitar and I played them a bunch of songs, maybe 20 songs. The A&R people there said, "We want to sign you to a development deal." And that was when I was 13. A development deal is not a full-on record deal. It's not 'All right, we're going to make an album. Let's go.' It's 'We're going to sponsor and pay for your demos that you do over this next year, and we're going to see how you grow as an artist. And then in a year, we're going to decide whether we want you or whether we want to develop you for more time or whether we want to drop you.' It's a non-committal commitment, but I was elated. I was just, 'Oh, my gosh! This huge record label wants to sign me to a development deal! I'm so excited!' So we started coming to Nashville more and more and more, and eventually we just decided to move." (CMT Insider)

Taylor moved to Nashville when she was fourteen and started attending Hendersonville High her freshman year. And finally when she was fifteen everything started to pay off, she got a record label and was able to start sharing her music with the world.  When she was sixteen she released her first album, a major victory in Nashville, a city that didn't see many young artists.  Everything skyrocketed after that.

"In this last year everything I've ever worked for has started to pay off. This last year has been absolutely amazing.  It's like everything I've ever wanted, everything I've ever worked for all this time is just happening because getting a record deal means being able to do what I want to do.  This is my chance, this is my chance to bring my music out of my bedroom where I'm writing it. I think it's definitely very surreal right now because there are so many firsts." ("A Place In This World" documentary)

In her lyric hints, capital letters in the lyric booklet Taylor says "FOUND IT".  I'm SO glad you found your place in this world Taylor!  Thanks for your music and Happy Birthday!

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Our Song

Today's Taylor Swift song is the meaning of "Our Song" from her album "Taylor Swift".

This song is a really fun song about a couple who doesn't have a song.  In the song Taylor describes all the fun things they do together and in essence it becomes their song.  This song would be a fun upbeat wedding song.

Who is this song about?

"Our Song" music video

It is about her boyfriend her freshman year of high school named Drew.

In November 2012 Taylor Swift during her VH1 storytellers concert Taylor said "This is a song that was off of my first album, and my first album came out when I was sixteen so the songs that I wrote on that album were songs I wrote when I was fourteen and fifteen. This was a song that I wrote actually to sing at the high school talent show. I was a freshman and I was, they had this talent show and I'd just moved there and I really wanted to like play for my friends the first time and I'd never told them really that I did this and I loved this and I write songs.  I had been dating this guy who was so nice.  So I wanted to write this song about us and play it for him and his friends and for me and for like all my friends and it was the high school talent show.  So I wrote this song and I included all these details about our relationship like how when we were on the phone really late at night my mom would patrol outside my room. She for real would just be like pacing outside my room like in figure eights and I'd be under the covers saying 'I like you so much too, I can't get off, I don't want to get off the phone, I just like you so much.'  My mom would be like 'Taylor get off the phone, you have to sleep, it's four in the morning you have to sleep, this is ridiculous, you will see Drew tomorrow, this is ridiculous.'  I wrote a song about like all the details of our relationship like when we were riding in cars and shotgun and like all those things.  So I go and I play it at the talent show and my friends loved it and like his friends loved it and people clapped a lot for it.  I went to my record label and I said to the guy at the record label, 'I think we should really put this song on the record because my friends at high school love it.' He was like, 'Now you can't just make all your decisions about a very serious thing like an album based on if your high school friends like it or not.' It ended up being our first number one at country radio so I guess you can."

It is such a happy and upbeat song and is definitely a Taylor classic.

Click here for the lyrics to "Our Song". 

Click here to watch the music video for "Our Song".

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The Outside

Today's Taylor Swift song is "The Outside" from her debut album "Taylor Swift."

What is this song about?

A young Taylor Swift

It is about herself in middle school.  She grew up on a Christmas tree farm in Wyomissing, Pennslyvania and started noticing she was different. Taylor says,  "All the girls at school were going to sleepovers and breaking into their parents’ liquor cabinets at the weekend, and all I wanted to do was go to festivals and sing karaoke music. All of a sudden there were all these little cliques. There’s cool girls and they have straight hair and you don’t – things start dividing you up and I was really fascinated by that. I would go to school and not have anyone to talk to, but what I could look forward to was going home and writing something about it."

"For me, I was facing a lot of things at school where I found myself on the outside looking in. I was not included. I would go to school some days, a lot of days, and not know who I was going to talk to. And that's a really terrifying thing for somebody who's 12."

She didn't fit in, she was different and she writes about it in "The Outside".   She "tried to take the road less traveled by" but "nobody ever lets me in."

I think every girl can feel like this when they go through middle school.  I did.  There was that one year where nothing seemed to go right, I was on the outside of all the circles.  I would go to school and not have anyone to hang out with, and the people I did eat lunch with didn't really like me.  Luckily for me that all changed and the next year and every subsequent year was better after that. Now I'm a grown adult and can hardly remember the loneliness of that year.  Taylor I can really relate to this song!

Click here for the lyrics to the song, "The Outside".

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