Picture To Burn performance
Swift performs Picture To Burn at the CMT Awards from her album Taylor Swift.
Picture to Burn
Swift releases her single, Picture to Burn, from her self titled album, Taylor Swift. Swift about the song:
I think girls can relate to the song because basically it’s about just being mad. And it’s OK to be mad after a breakup or after something goes wrong with a relationship. It’s just like completely, brutally honest. It’s also kind of funny. It’s got a comedic edge to it.
Taylor Swift
Swift releases her first studio album self-titled Taylor Swift. The 15 track record features singles Teardrops on My Guitar and Our Song. The album also features collaborations with writer Liz Rose for each of the album’s tracks.
I love writing with Liz. When we write, I usually come in with a melody and some lyric content, and then we’ll work on creating the rest of the song. She’s a really good song editor.
Teardrops on My Guitar
Swift releases her single, Teardrops on My Guitar, from her self titled album, Taylor Swift.Swift shares her motivation to write the song:
I used to have a huge crush on this guy, who would sit there every day talking to me about…another girl: how beautiful she was, how nice and smart and perfect she was. And I sat there and listened, never meaning it any of the times I said `Oh, I’m so happy for you.’ I guess this is a good example of how I let my feelings out in songs, and sometimes no other way. And I’ve never been afraid of using names. I love this song because of its honesty and vulnerability. To this day, they are still together and he has no idea about this song.
Our Song
Swift releases her single, Our Song, from her self titled album, Taylor Swift. About what inspired her to write her song:
I wrote this song in my freshman year of high school for my 9th grade talent show. So I was sitting there thinking, ‘I’ve gotta write a song that’s gonna relate to everyone in the talent show, and it’s gotta be upbeat.’ And at that time, I was dating a guy, and we didn’t have a song. So I went ahead and wrote us one, and I played it at the talent show at the end of the year. And months later, people would come up to me and they’re like, ‘I loved that song that you played – ‘Our Song’.’ And then they’d start singing lines of it back to me. And they’d only heard it once, so I thought, ‘There must be something here!’
Tim McGraw
Swift releases her single, Tim McGraw, from her self titled album, Taylor Swift. Swift tells about what drove her to write the song:
I wrote [the song] in my freshman year of high school. I got the idea in math class. I was just sitting there, and I started humming this melody. I kind of related it to this situation I was in. I was dating a guy who was about to go off to college. I knew we were going to break up. So I started thinking about all the things that I knew would remind him of me. Surprisingly, the first thing that came to mind was that my favorite country artist is Tim McGraw.
Moves near Nashville
The entire Swift family moves to Hendersonville, Tennessee when she is fourteen, so Taylor can be close to Nashville and continue pursuing her music career. In a 2008 interview she says:
Living in Pennsylvania was great, and it was an incredible place to grow up, but I didn’t have any friends, so I was like, “Sure, let’s move. I’ll miss my friends even though I don’t have any.” So that wasn’t a big deal for me. But my dad had to transfer his work to Nashville. For a while, he was commuting back and forth and it was an incredible sacrifice for my parents to make and I’ve never forgotten it.