Taylor Swift has been writing songs for years. Her fans have praised the way Swift reveals herself through her lyrics. She said she’s been doing since she was a teenager.
Swift once discussed an early song that she wrote while she was genuinely angry.
Taylor Swift shared how anger inspired one of her songs
Swift began writing songs as a teenager and often drew inspiration from her real life. She said she wrote the song “Picture to Burn” about a boy she knew.
“The guy I wrote this song about, I didn’t really ever ‘officially’ date. We almost dated,” she wrote in a 2007 Q&A with GAC. “It really bothered me that he was so cocky and that’s where that song came from. After school, I would come into downtown. I had a publishing deal with Sony, and I would write songs every single day, exactly what I felt.”
She liked that she was able to create art from a place of anger. It helped her be more honest in her songwriting.
“I found myself just sitting there with my guitar going, ‘I hate his stupid truck that he doesn’t let me drive. He’s such a redneck! Oh my God!’ That actually became the chorus to the song, so that’s one of the most honest songs I’ve ever written,” she wrote. “I’m so glad you like that song. Hopefully, it will be a single sometime so we can make a cool video with lots of angriness.”
Taylor Swift shared when she realized she needed to start writing her own songs
Swift said she started writing songs as a way to stand out to record labels.
“I came to Nashville with my little demo/karaoke CD and walked into every major record label and was like, ‘Hey! I’m Taylor. I’m 11. I want a record deal.’ At that point I realized that there are girls in Nashville, thousands of them, that are gorgeous, have amazing voices, and could pretty much sing me off a cliff. I had to figure out a way to stand out. I picked up a guitar and started to write songs and play my own music.”
She also realized that if she could write her own music, she wouldn’t have to rely on anyone else to create songs.
“I figured, if I could walk into a room and play my own guitar and sing songs that I’ve written, they can’t touch that. I can literally not depend on anyone, creatively. That’s exactly what I did.”
She has since altered the lyrics to ‘Picture to Burn’
In the original version of the song, Swift sings “So go and tell your friends that I’m obsessive and crazy/ That’s fine, I’ll tell mine you’re gay, by the way.” She has since changed the lyrics. She altered the second line to “That’s fine, you won’t mind if I say, by the way.”
Swift has also noted that the emotions she expressed in the song didn’t align with how she would react to heartbreak as she aged.
“I had this song called ‘Picture to Burn,’ that’s talking about how ‘I hate your truck,’ and ‘I hate that you ignored me,’ ‘I hate you,’” she told MTV News. “Now, the way that I would say that and the way that I would feel that kind of pain is a lot different.”
