Two decades after writing her first song, and almost 16 years after releasing her eponymous debut album, Taylor Swift accepted the Songwriter-Artist of the Decade award on Tuesday evening (Sept. 20) at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, during the annual Nashville Songwriter Awards. The honor celebrated Swift’s successes between 2010 and 2019, a time period that saw Swift fully transition from country to pop, amassing hits and fan favorites including the pop-country crossovers “Fearless,” “Mine” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” to the electrifying pop of “Shake It Off,” “Style” and “Blank Space” to more intimate tracks such as “Lover” and “New Year’s Day.”
Nashville Songwriters Association International executive director Bart Herbison introduced Swift during the ceremony, reminding the audience of her record-breaking seven wins in the songwriter-artist of the year category. Previous songwriter-artist of the decade winners include Toby Keith (2000-09) and Vince Gill (1990-99).
As Swift took the stage to fervent cheers from the audience, the 11-time Grammy winner first offered an acceptance speech that also served as a concise look into Swift’s lyrical process. Notably, she told the audience that she categorizes her lyrics in the way others categorize musical genres, breaking her lyrics down into three categories: Quill (using “ivy” as an example), Fountain Pen Lyrics (“All Too Well”) and Glitter Gel Pen Style (“Shake It Off”). She also surprised the audience with an acoustic version of the fan favorite “All Too Well (10-Minute Version).”
Others honored during the evening included Sony Music Publishing chairman & CEO Jon Platt (with the president’s keystone award), songwriter Ashley Gorley (with the songwriter of the year and songwriter of the decade honors), Garth Brooks (Kris Kristofferson lifetime achievement award), and Matthew West (songwriter-artist of the year). The Jordan Davis/Luke Bryan collaboration “Buy Dirt,” written by Jacob Davis, Jordan Davis, Josh Jenkins and Matt Jenkins, was named song of the year.
Read Swift’s full acceptance speech below:
Well hi! I want to say thank you to Bart for introducing me in such a generous way and I want to say thank you to the NSAI for getting us all together for this event. For me, tonight feels brimming with a genuine camaraderie between a bunch of people who just love making stuff. Who love the craft. Who live for that rare, pure moment when a magical cloud floats down right in front of you in the form of an idea for a song, and all you have to do is grab it. Then shape it like clay. Prune it like a garden. And then wish on every lucky star or pray to whatever power you believe in that it might find its way out into the world and make someone feel seen, feel understood, feel joined in their grief or heartbreak or joy for just a moment.
I’ve learned by being in the entertainment industry for an extended period of time that this business operates with a very new, new, new, next, next, next mentality. For every artist or songwriter, we’re all just hoping to have one great year. One great album cycle. One great run at radio. And these days, one song that goes viral on TikTok. One glorious moment in the sun. Because on your next project you’ll probably have to invent a new thing to be. Think of all new things to say, and fresh ways to say them. You will have to entertain people. And the fact is that what entertains us is either seeing new artists emerge or established artists showing us a new side to themselves. If we are very, very lucky, life will say to us “your song is great.” The next thing life will say is “What else can you do?”
I say all of this because I’m up here receiving this beautiful award for a decade of work, and I can’t possibly explain how nice that feels. Because the way I see it, this is an award that celebrates a culmination of moments. Challenges. Gauntlets laid down. Albums I’m proud of. Triumphs. Strokes of luck or misfortune. Loud, embarrassing errors and the subsequent recovery from those mistakes, and the lessons learned from all of it. This award celebrates my family and my co-writers and my team. My friends and my fiercest fans and my harshest detractors and everyone who entered my life or left it. Because when it comes to my songwriting and my life, they are one in the same. As the great Nora Ephron once said, “Everything is copy.”
Twenty years ago, I wrote my first song. I used to dream about one day getting to bounce around the different musical worlds of my various sonic influences, and change up the production of my albums. I hoped that one day, the blending of genres wouldn’t be such a big deal. There’s so much discussion about genre and it always usually leads back to a conversation about melody and production. But that leaves out possibly my favorite part of songwriting: lyricism.
And I’ve never talked about this publicly before, because, well, it’s dorky.
But I also have, in my mind, secretly, established genre categories for lyrics I write. Three of them, to be exact. They are affectionately titled Quill Lyrics, Fountain Pen Lyrics, and Glitter Gel Pen Lyrics.
I know this sounds confusing but I’ll try to explain. I came up with these categories based on what writing tool I imagine having in my hand when I scribbled it down, figuratively. I don’t actually have a quill. Anymore. I broke it once when I was mad.
I categorize certain songs of mine in the Quill style if the words and phrasings are antiquated, if I was inspired to write it after reading Charlotte Brontë or after watching a movie where everyone is wearing poet shirts and corsets. If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great grandmother while sewing a lace curtain, that’s me writing in the Quill genre. I will give you an example from one of my songs [“Ivy”] I’d categorize as Quill.
“How’s one to know/ I’d meet you where the spirit meets the bones/ In a faith forgotten land/ In from the snow, your touch brought forth an incandescent glow/ Tarnished but so grand.”
Moving on to Lyricism category #2: Fountain Pen style. I’d say most of my lyrics fall into this category. Fountain pen style means a modern storyline or references, with a poetic twist. Taking a common phrase and flipping its meaning. Trying to paint a vivid picture of a situation, down to the chipped paint on the door frame and the incense dust on the vinyl shelf. Placing yourself and whoever is listening right there in the room where it all happened. The love, the loss, everything. The songs I categorize in this style sound like confessions scribbled and sealed in an envelope, but too brutally honest to ever send.
For Example [from “All Too Well”]: “’Cause there we are again in the middle of the night/ We’re dancing ’round the kitchen in the refrigerator light/ Down the stairs, I was there/ I remember it all too well/ And there we are again when nobody had to know/ You kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath/ Sacred prayer, and we’d swear to remember it all too well”
The third category is called Glitter Gel Pen and it lives up to its name in every way. Frivolous, carefree, bouncy, syncopated perfectly to the beat. Glitter Gel Pen lyrics don’t care if you don’t take them seriously because they don’t take themselves seriously. Glitter Gel Pen lyrics are the drunk girl at the party who tells you that you look like an angel in the bathroom. It’s what we need every once in a while in these fraught times in which we live.
Example [from “Shake It Off”]: “My ex man brought his new girlfriend; she’s like ‘oh my god’ but I’m just gonna shake and to the fella over there with the hella good hair, won’t you come on over baby we can shake, shake, shake.”
Why did I make these categories, you ask? Because I love doing this thing we are fortunate enough to call a job. Writing songs is my life’s work and my hobby and my never-ending thrill. I am moved beyond words that you, my peers, decided to honor me in this way for work I’d still be doing if I had never been recognized for it.
Lately I’ve been on a joyride down memory lane. I’ve been re-recording my first six albums. When I go through the process of meticulously re-creating each element of my past and revisiting songs I wrote when I was 13, 14, and 15, that path leads me right to Music Row. How my mom would pick me up from school and drive me to my co-writing sessions with dozens of writers (and some of you are in this very room tonight) who 15 years ago decided to give me their time, their wisdom, their belief before anyone thought writing with me was a productive use of an afternoon. I will never forget you, every last one of you.
Part of my re-recording process has included adding songs that never made the original albums, but songs I hated to leave behind. I’ve gone back and recorded a bunch of them for my version of my albums. Fearless (My Version) came out last year and as I was choosing songs for it, I came across one I’d written with the Warren brothers when I was 14. I decided to record it as a duet with the brilliant Keith Urban. When I called the the Warrens up to tell them I was cutting our song 17 years after we’d written it, I’ll never forget the first thing they said. “Well, I think that’s the longest hold we’ve ever had.”
In 2011, just over 10 years ago, my trusted collaborator and confidant Liz Rose came over to my apartment and I showed her a song I’d been working on. I was going through a rough time (as is the natural state of being 21) and had scribbled down verse after verse after verse, a song that was too long to put on an album. It clocked in at around 10 minutes. We set out editing, trimming, cutting out big sections until it was a reasonable 5 minutes and 30 seconds. It was called “All Too Well.” Last year when I re-recorded my 2012 album Red, I included this 10-minute version with its original verses and extra bridges. I never could’ve imagined when we wrote it that that song would be resurfacing 10 years later or that I’d be about to play it for you tonight.
But a song can defy logic or time. A good song transports you to your truest feelings and translates those feelings for you. A good song stays with you even when people or feelings don’t. Writing songs is a calling and getting to call it your career makes you very lucky. You have to be grateful every day for it, and all the people who thought your words might be worth listening to. This town is the school that taught me that.
To be honored by you means more than any genre of my lyrics could ever say.
Thank you.
