40 Surprising Taylor Swift Facts That All True Swifties Should Know
40 Surprising Taylor Swift Facts That All True Swifties Should Know
Taylor Swift is a sensational musician. Read on to learn the most interesting things about her
Taylor Swift is a sensational musician. Read on to learn the most interesting things about her
1. Taylor's parents named her after singer/songwriter James Taylor.
Music is obviously very important to Swift's parents and James Taylor is one of the greats. This came full circle when she performed with James Taylor on his song "Fire and Rain."
2. Taylor grew up on a Christmas tree farm in Berks County, Pennsylvania before later moving to Nashville to pursue music.
Growing up in rural Pennsylvania was pretty different from the life of stardom that awaited her down the road. “It’s not my family farm anymore. We sold it when we went to Nashville," she told a crowd in 2018. "I’ve been thinking about how cool it is to be back where I started writing songs.”
3. When she was 12, computer repairman taught her how to play three chords on the guitar. It wasn't long before she wrote her firs song "Lucky You”.
You never know who you'll meet and what they might teach you. We hope she thanked that random computer repair guy in on one of her acceptance speeches.
4. Spiders and snakes are some of Taylor's worst fears.
Here are some creepy facts: There are 600 venomous snakes in the world. Almost all 40,000 spices of spider have some amount of venom, though most can't kill a person.
5. In her Nashville home, she has a framed photograph of Kanye West. The photo is captioned with "Life is full of little interruptions yo."
Taylor and Kanye have thankfully patched up their differences. Now only if she could move past her other celebrity beefs.
6. Taylor is a multi-instrumentalists and can play banjo, guitar, ukulele, and piano.
Not many pop stars can rock a banjo. She played the banjo at the Grammy awards in 2012.
7. Age 11, she performed at a Philadelphia 76ers game and sang ‘The Star-Spangled Banner‘. She also won a local talent competition singing the LeAnn Rimes "Big Deal."
Some kids just have that undeniable talent from an early age. It's no wonder that before she was even in high school, Taylor's parents packed up and moved so she could pursue her music dreams.
8. Karlie Kloss is one of Taylor's best friends and even has a room that's just for her to stay in at Taylor's NYC home.
Karlie Kloss, of course, appeared in Taylor's video for "Bad Blood." Fans were shocked though when Taylor didn't make it to Karlie's wedding in 2018.
9. Taylor wrote a 350-page novel when she was 12. So far, it has never been published.
10. Speaking of books, The Hunger Games and To Kill a Mocking Bird, are two of Taylor's favorite books.
The novel is titled A Girl Named Girl, and as Taylor put it, was "about a mother who wants a son but instead has a girl." Would you read her book?
11. Taylor was inspired to move to Nashville to pursue music after watching a Behind the Music episode about Faith Hill.
Taylor got to live out her dream of performing with Faith Hill when Faith joined her onstage at Nashville's Nissan Stadium in 2018. Can you guess what they sang? Her song "Tim McGraw," duh!
12. Taylor has one brother, Austin Swift. He works as a freelance photographer.
Austin is a couple of years younger than Taylor and attended Notre Dame University. After graduating he interned at the film production company Lion's Gate.
13. Besides Faith Hill, Taylor is a huge fan of Shania Twain and cites the Canadian singer as one of her biggest musical influences.
"It takes courage to walk your own path, get off the treadmill, rise above the crowd and just do your own thing," Shania said of Taylor. "Music is in her soul and she focuses on her strength, improves her weaknesses. She's just a hardworking, talented lady..."
14. Taylor has said that she's not sure if she would ever get a tattoo, but that if she did, she'd get the number 13.
Taylor shocked fans, however, when she showed up with a massive butterfly back tattoo in the video for her song "You Need to Calm Down." It wasn't real though.
15. Taylor was one of the first country musicians to really develop a huge fan base by promoting herself on Myspace.
Whoa, we're going way back on this one. Yep, back in like, 2005, when MySpace was all the rage, Taylor was slowly building her fanbase.
16. Taylor Swift's maternal grandmother was an opera singer. Her name was Marjorie (Moehlenkamp) Finlay.
17. Taylor was the first SNL host to writer her own song for an SNL monologue. It was called "My Monologue Song" and took jabs at Joe Jonas and Kanye West.
She was born on October 5, 1928 in Memphis, Tennessee. She and her husband lived with Taylor and her family until her death on June 1, 2003 in Reading, Pennsylvania.
18. Her family owned both a Shetland pony and Quarter horses. While living in Pennsylvania, she learned English Riding as a kid and competed in horse shows.
Do you think this fact had any influence on her song "White Horse"? Horses have also popped up in a few of her videos.
19. At just 20-years-old, Taylor won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2010 for "Fearless." She was the youngest artist to ever win a Grammy in that category.
She's not the youngest Grammy winner though. That title would go to Leah Peasall, who was just 8 when she won a Grammy.
20. In 2005, Taylor was told by an interviewer, “If music doesn’t work out, you could be a hair model“. In 2012, the same woman interviewed her again and apologized for the comment.
Taylor probably could have been a model, she certainly has quite a few famous model friends. We're glad the music thing worked out in her favor!
21. Taylor was 14 when her family packed up and moved to Nashville, Tennessee so that she could pursue music.
Nashville already had a long history as a music city before Taylor moved to town. Superstars like Johnny Cash, Faith Hill, and Kenny Chesney all made a name for themselves there.
22. Taylor had a cameo in Hanna Montana: The Movie. She can be seen playing her song "Crazier" during a slow dance scene in the film.
Taylor and Miley 4 ever!
23. Taylor's big break in Nashville came after she performed at the Blue Bird Cafe in 2006. She was signed to Big Machine Records.
The Blue Bird Cafe still hosts singer/songwriter nights almost every night of the week. Many a star has come through its doors.
24. Taylor's job as a kid on the Christmas tree farm was making sure all the trees were clear of bugs before being sold. Except one time she forgot and a bunch of baby praying mantises hatched in a family's tree!
The mantis that is often seen in the United States is actually native to China. It was introduced in Taylor's home state of Pennsylvania nearly 80 years ago.
25. Taylor has a cat named Meredith after Dr. Meredith Grey from the TV show Grey's Anatomy. Her second cat is named Olivia after Olivia Benson from the TV show Law and Order: SVU.
She recently adopted a new cat named Benjamin from the set of her music video "Me!" “He was just a cute kitten who didn’t have a home,” she explained.
26. She's a fan of phone cases, particularly vintage-looking handmade ones that you might find on Etsy.
You can even buy Taylor Swift-themed phone cases from Etsy. The question is, does Taylor have a Taylor Swift iPhone case???
27. She decided not to publicly say who she was voting for in the 2016 US presidential election, because she thought it was more important that people simply get out and vote.
Taylor has caught some flack for not being as politically outspoken as other celebrities. She did endorse Tennessee politician Phil Bredesen in 2018.
28. She's a winner. She's won over 340 various music awards and been nominated some 500 times.
So far, she's had 32 Grammy nominations and 10 wins overall. Wow, way to go, Taylor!
29. Taylor’s first hit single was called "Tim McGraw." It reached the top 10 songs on the country charts in 2006 and she later performed it with the man himself.
Taylor co-wrote the song with Liz Rose during her freshman year of high school. "I was just sitting there [in math class], and I started humming this melody."
30. Taylor's of course a fashion icon and one of her most famous outfits was this disco ball inspired Balmain design for the 2018 American Music Awards.
Some of Taylor's most famous dresses are on display at various museums. Do you have a favorite?
31. Taylor has a bit of a sweet tooth and her favorite dessert is cheesecake.
Her favorite cocktail is vodka and Diet Coke. And if you're hitting up a fast food drive-thru with her, she'll have a burger, fries, and chocolate shake.
32. Taylor only wears contact lenses when out in public. At home she normally wears glasses.
"So I have these huge glasses that I wear that are the ugliest pair of glasses you'll ever see in your life," she said. " I'm like, 'no one is going to buy those, and they're so ugly.' So I had to buy them."
33. Taylor's outfit for the 2016 Met Gala in NY was designed by Louis Vuitton.
Taylor decided not to attend the 2019 Met Gala. In 2018 she skipped because she was busy with her Reputation world tour.
34. Taylor announced her new single "Me" by surprising fans in Nashville with a giant butterfly mural. Fans were encouraged to come by and take their own photo with the butterfly wings.
The mural was painted by street artist Kelsey Montague. "We've commissioned this butterfly mural to be painted on a wall in Nashville and put clues about the song and the new music in the mural," she said.
35. You probably won't ever see Taylor sitting next to you on a commercial flight. She prefers to take her Dassault Falcon 900 private jet.
The jet is worth around $40 million. On the nose of the jet is the number 13 -- because of course!
36. Taylor loves herself a good pair of boots, and one of her favorite looks is a sundress and pair of cowboy boots.
These boots were cutstom made for Taylor by a world-renknown bootmaker. She wore them onstage at the CMA awards during a performance.
37. She's kind of a nervous driver. Taylor said that when a Rolling Stone journalist was riding around with her, she got into two car accidents... in the same day!
"The first wreck was my fault," she said, "but the second was like 'I just saved your life, dude.' I'm pretty sure he blurted out something like 'My wife just had a baby!'"
38. In 2009, Taylor Swift made country music milestone by selling more digital downloads than any other country artist in music history.
Wow, Taylor Swift may not do much country music these days, but she definitey cemented her place in country music history. There's even an exhibit on her album Red at the Country Music Museum and Hall of Fame.
39. Taylor wanted the video for her single "Shake it Off" to be a fan experience and selected some lucky Swifties to appear in the video with her.
The fans were chosen through a contest and got to bust out their best dance movies with Taylor. Those are some lucky Swifties!
40. Before the release of 1989, a lucky 89 of her biggest fans were invited over to Taylor's house to listen to the album. Taylor's guests were also given fresh-baked cookies.
So would you rather have Taylor serve you fresh cookies at a listening party or get to dance with her in a music video. Choices, choices indeed.