Taylor Swift is by now the biggest pop star this generation has seen, setting world records with her sold-out concerts and best-selling singles. But before she was the mega-star she is, Swift got her start in country music.
It’s been over a decade since Swift officially made her entrance into the pop world, with “Shake It Off,” out in 2014. But although she may have switched genres, she still has plenty of country music classics that are worth keeping on repeat. We picked four of our favorites.
1. “Tim McGraw”
“Tim McGraw” is Swift’s very first single, giving country music an idea of what she is capable of as a songwriter. The song, which she wrote with Liz Rose, also gave fans an inkling of how personal she would get in her music.
“The idea for this song came to me in math class,” Swift says (via Songfacts). “I just started singing to myself, ‘When you think Tim McGraw.’ The concept for this song hit me, because I was dating a guy who moved away, and it was going to be over for us. So I started thinking of things that I knew would remind him of me. The first thing that came to mind was that my favorite song is by Tim McGraw.”
2. “You Belong With Me”
If “Tim McGraw” gave fans an idea of what she was capable of as a songwriter, “You Belong With Me” gave fans an idea of how far she would go to tell a story in video. Swift played the awkward teenager who catches the attention of her high school crush, while also playing his beautiful girlfriend.
“This song is basically about wanting someone who is with this girl who doesn’t appreciate him at all,” Swift tells MTV. “Basically like ‘girl-next-door-itis.’ You like this guy who you have for your whole life, and you know him better than she does but somehow the popular girl gets the guy every time.”
3. “Love Story
Swift wrote “Love Story” by herself, releasing it as the first single from her sophomore Fearless album. Comparing her romance to Romeo and Juliet, Swift once again drew from personal experience in penning the sweet love song.
“I wrote it about a guy that I was talking to,” Swift tells The Morning Call. “He wasn’t the popular choice, but I believed in it. I thought, ‘This love is difficult, but it’s real.’ And I knew I needed to put that line in somewhere. I think that this song is really more about a love that’s not convenient and not as comfortable as something else, but it’s something you have to fight for. I added the ending [a proposal] cause I want that ending. I want someone to say, ‘I love you and that’s all I really know.’ That’s the girly girl in me.”
4. “Mean”
Swift has enjoyed a lengthy career by her honesty in her songwriting, which came out in “Mean.” But this song, from her 2010 Speak Now, was a message to people who bullied her online. Singing, “Someday I’ll be big enough so you can’t hit me / And all your ever gonna be is mean,” the song was rumored to be inspired after a performance with Stevie Nicks in 2010 was widely criticized.
“I get that, no matter what, you’re going to be criticized for something,” Swift says. “But I also get that there are different kinds of ways to criticize someone. There’s constructive criticism, there’s professional criticism – and then there’s just being mean. And there’s a line that you cross when you just start to attack everything about a person.”
