Taylor Swift Early Life

Taylor Swift Early Life

Swift was born in the city of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. She is the daughter of Scott, a stock broker, and Andrea Swift, a homemaker. She has a younger brother, Austin.[10] When she was in fourth grade, Swift won a national poetry contest with a three-page poem entitled "Monster In My Closet".[11][12] At the age of ten, Swift began writing songs and singing at karaoke contests, festivals, and fairs around her hometown. During one summer, Swift devoted herself to writing a 350-page (unpublished) novel.[13] She was a member of Kirk Cremer's SNL-inspired kid's sketch comedy group, TheatreKids Live!, where she was a natural comedic talent. After seeing her karaoke performance at one of the cast parties, it was Cremer's mother who first suggested that Swift seemed more of a natural to pursue a career in country music, rather than theatrical performing. Cremer soon leased space at a local mall and began to showcase his young protégée in weeknight performances of country songs with karaoke backing tracks. Emboldened by her performances and growing audiences, she began to perform in other local open mike and karaoke nights. Her first major show was a well-received performance at the Bloomsburg Fair, arranged by local performer Pat Garrett.[14]

Song Writing Interest

Swift first learned to play guitar from a computer repair man who showed her how to play 3 chords. Right after learning those three chords she wrote her first song called "Lucky you". She began writing songs regularly and used it as outlet to help her with her pain from not fitting in at school. Other kids would react badly to her so she wrote songs about them.

Early Work

Swift's greatest musical influence is Shania Twain.[15] Her other influences include her grandmother, LeAnn Rimes, Tina Turner and Dolly Parton. Although her grandmother was a professional opera singer,[16] Taylor's tastes always ran more toward country and she developed a love for Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton at an early age.[17] She also credits the Dixie Chicks and Shania Twain for demonstrating how much impact can be made by "stretching boundaries".[18] At age 11, Swift made her first trip to Nashville hoping to obtain a record deal by distributing a demo tape of her singing with karaoke songs. She gave a copy to every label in town.[19] Swift faced rejection, not just from record labels, but also from her peers.[20] After Swift returned to Pennsylvania, she was asked to sing at the U.S. Open tennis tournament; her rendition of the national anthem received a lot of attention.[21] Swift started writing songs and playing 12-string guitar when she was 12. Swift began to regularly visit Nashville and wrote songs with local songwriters. By the time she was 14, her family decided to move to an outlying Nashville suburb.[22] When Swift was fifteen, she rejected a development deal with RCA Records because the company wanted to keep her on a development deal [23] Swift then performed at Nashville's songwriters' venue, The Bluebird Café, catching the attention of Scott Borchetta[24] who signed her to his newly-formed record label, Big Machine Records. She also became the youngest staff songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house.[25]