Taylor Swift

This Is Our Song

Tyler Conroy

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781501143472
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Pop Music

A book about Taylor.
Made with love.
By fans. For fans. "Delightful...A rich and exhaustive production...Swifties have gotten their bible." — The New Yorker Ten years ago, an unknown sixteen-year-old released a self-titled debut country album. A decade later, Taylor Swift has reached record-breaking, chart-topping heights. A ten-time Grammy winner, Swift has been hailed for her songwriting talent, crossed effortlessly from country to pop, and established herself as a musician who can surprise, delight, and inspire, all while connecting with her fans in a way that only she can.Amazingly, after all these years, there is no great, comprehensive book about Swift for her fans. Until now. This book, a fan-generated celebration of Swift's first decade as an artist, collects the best writing and images from the past ten years in one gorgeous volume. From prefame interviews with Swift in local Pennsylvania newspapers to major profiles in The New Yorker and Rolling Stone; from album reviews by top critics such as Robert Christgau, Sasha Frere-Jones, and Ann Powers to essays by beloved novelists like Maggie Shipstead; from Tavi Gevinson's classic ode to Swift in The Believer to Q&As with Chuck Klosterman and humorous analysis from McSweeney's and The Hairpin; from album-themed crossword puzzles and adult coloring pages to profiles of Taylor's biggest fans; from an excerpt of the soon-to-be-published novel Taylor Swift: Girl Detective to a "book within a book" of Swift's most inspiring quotations titled (naturally) The Tao of Tay, this book is the vital collection of all things Taylor.Here, finally, is the must-have book for every Swiftie and every music lover. For, as Klosterman wrote in GQ, "If you don't take Swift seriously, you don't take contemporary music seriously." * This book is a tribute to Taylor Swift, but she was not involved in its creation. *

Taylor Swift of Wyomissing Hills was invited to sing the national anthem

READING EAGLE, APRIL 19, 2002 | JEREMY CARROLL

Taylor A. Swift, twelve, of Wyomissing Hills thought her ten-year-old brother, Austin K., might have been playing an April Fools’ Day joke on her when he told her the Philadelphia 76ers invited her to sing the national anthem at an upcoming home basketball game.

But Austin was telling the truth, relaying the information from their father, Scott K., who phoned with the thrilling day-after-Easter news.

“My mom and I were just jumping up and down we were so excited,” said Taylor, who sang the anthem just before the tip-off of the Sixers game against the Detroit Pistons on April 5.

“I just really love doing that sort of thing,” she said. “It is an adrenaline rush for me.”

Swift, a sixth grader at West Reading Elementary Center, sang the national anthem at a Reading Phillies game several years ago.

Last month she did another rendition at a basketball game at Wyomissing High School in which the Harlem Wizards played against the Wyomissing Heroes, made up of school faculty and other members of the community.

It was her first performance at the Wizards’ game that gave her the chance to sing at a much larger venue, Philadelphia’s First Union Center, where 20,754 fans came to see the Sixers and Pistons play.

Scott Swift sent in a video of his daughter singing the anthem to the 76ers, hoping the team would recognize her talent.

Sixers manager of game operations Kathy Drysdale, who said she gets hundreds of videotapes from performers interested in singing the anthem at one of the team’s exhibition games or forty-one regular season home games, sat up and took notice of Swift.

“She has this fantastic voice that catches everyone’s attention,” Drysdale said. “Her voice is so strong and powerful at twelve years old. You look at her and think, ‘Did that come out of her mouth?’ ”

Swift left for Philadelphia right after school on April 5 with her parents, brother, and a friend of her brother. They encountered lots of traffic and wound up making it to the arena just in time for her sound check at five.

Shortly after their arrival, team officials presented Taylor, Austin, and Austin’s friend with duffel bags full of 76ers merchandise, including basketballs, jerseys, and hats. Taylor also received a jersey signed by some of the Sixers players.

After getting ready in a private dressing room, Swift was escorted by a security guard onto the court, which was adorned with a red carpet.

Her mother, Andrea F., admitted she was very nervous leading up to the anthem.

“They had a small number of cameras all focused right around her and she was up on the big screen,” Andrea said. “It’s very, very scary as a mom to see your child out there.”

Taylor was much more relaxed about the whole thing, experiencing few butterflies even as the lights were dimmed just moments before her performance.

“I was just practicing the first note over and over in my head,” she said.

Swift, who sang the final words of the anthem in the midst of deafening cheers from the crowd, said the whole experience was a big thrill.

“All of these NBA players and all of these other people were looking at me,” she said. “It was really a wonderful feeling.”

Swift has been performing practically all of her life in local theater productions.

Next Friday and Saturday she will perform in Wyomissing High School’s production of The Sound of Music.

Swift, whose maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, of Wyomissing Park, is a retired opera singer, has been pursuing a country music singing career.

The aspiring singing star, who also plays electric guitar, performed with the Pat Garrett Band at last year’s Bloomsburg Fair and has cut a country CD.

Late last month the Swifts traveled to Nashville, where they distributed the CD to record companies in the hope of landing a recording deal.

When she is not busy performing, Swift enjoys spending time with her friends.

A REVIEW OF TAYLOR SWIFT

FALL 2006 RICK BELL

Despite a grown-up major-label debut, it appears Taylor Swift is okay with just being a kid sometimes. Swift, a native of Pennsylvania’s farm country, is all of sixteen. She keeps up with friends and fans on MySpace, bored-teenager doodles meander through the liner notes, and the album, which includes her coming-of-age debut single “Tim McGraw,” has an iPod feel with as much pop as country among the eleven cuts.

Yet Swift, thanks in part to unknown producer Nathan Chapman, deftly blends a Cyndi Thomson–meets–Hilary Duff sound anchored in Swift’s smart songwriting while employing a heady list of studio musicians. Chapman is a budding talent as well, playing about every instrument imaginable while handling the production chores. Swift wrote or cowrote all the cuts, but credits her coauthors—primarily Liz Rose, who pitched in on seven songs, including “Tim McGraw”—for lending direction and focus.

Swift’s best efforts come on her deeply personal, self-penned songs, particularly “The Outside” and “Our Song,” which she sings with stirring conviction.

It’s an impressive debut that, while she pines about lost love and Tim McGraw, will likely have others singing the praises of Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift

by Tony Orbach, edited by Ben Tausig

---

ACROSS

1 Grouchy types

6 Actress Reid of the Sharknado movies

10 Letters on a party invitation

14 Hard-hit baseball

15 Unwelcome smell

16 Olympic fencing sword

17 Assume the role of

18 Taylor Swift single named for Faith Hill’s husband, who recorded her “favorite song”

20 Competes in a slalom race, say

21 “My country, ’tis of ___ . . .”

22 Train track

23 Taylor Swift breakup song in which she will “strike a match on all my wasted time”

26 Once ___ lifetime

27 Build on

29 Made into grain-sized pieces

32 Contented sound from a cat

35 What a commoner might call a king

37 Progressive Insurance ad character played by comedian Stephanie Courtney

38 Taylor Swift’s album-closing tune that is “the slamming screen door, sneakin’ out late, tapping on your window”

41 Sergeant or corporal: Abbr.

42 Heidi of Project Runway

44 Prod into action

45 Church instrument

47 Hair tangle

49 Sheep’s greeting

50 Taylor Swift song in which she hopes “your life leads you back to my door”

57 College bigwig below the provost

58 Toddler’s song, perhaps

59 Back of the neck

60 Taylor Swift song in which there is “a rainy ending given to a perfect day”

62 Treat badly

63 Cowboy’s suffix with buck

64 Car horn beep

65 Solitary person

66 Roseanne star

67 Film protagonist Skywalker

68 Tries to flatten, as a fly

DOWN

1 Manila envelope fastener

2 Talk show host ___ Lake

3 Single bit of silliness

4 “Fight for Your Right” band the ___ Boys

5 Twelfth graders: Abbr.

6 “Take Me Out ___ Ball Game”

7 On ___ (trying to lose weight)

8 Juliet’s love

9 Body part on which Taylor Swift wrote lyrics during her Speak Now tour

10 “Give My ___ to Broadway”

11 Competing in the 100-meter, say

12 Cutlet meat

13 Bench in a church

19 Gunk

21 ___ la la (nonsense song syllables)

24 Computer editing command

25 Farm building in which Taylor Swift’s “Crazier” video is set

28 Killer whale

29 ___ Stadium (D.C. United’s home field)

30 Misfortunes

31 Summer camp boss

32 Paid player

33 Team ___ (Olympic basketball powerhouse)

34 Fishing pole

36 Extremely long time

39 Especially unpleasant, like some breakups

40 The best ever, for short

43 Bullfighter

46 LGBT flag symbol

48 ___ temperature (was feverish)

49 Tour vehicle for Taylor Swift

51 Blue ___ (hit song for both Roy Orbison and Linda Ronstadt)

52 Purchase for a Kindle

53 Sharp, as an angle

54 Flora’s counterpart

55 Unexpected sports outcome

56 Lascivious looks

57 Nickelodeon’s ___ the Explorer

60 Big city transportation option

61 Letters on a Cardinals cap

62 Politicians Gore and Franken

---

This puzzle is courtesy of avxword.com. For the solution, see page 280.

with Taylor Swift

CMT...