Rolling Stone reports that Taylor Swift was inducted by Brad Paisley at a Nashville ceremony on 26 October, using her speech to look back on her teenage years writing on Music Row.
Taylor Swift was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame at a ceremony held on Monday 26 October at the Music City Center in Nashville, becoming the institution's youngest member, according to Rolling Stone. Country singer Brad Paisley inducted her, and Lainey Wilson performed a stripped-down version of "Love Story". Swift's fellow inductees were Shawn Camp, Bruce Channel, Lyle Lovett and Lee Thomas Miller, while George Strait received a career honour and the late J.I. Allison of Buddy Holly's Crickets entered in the Legacy category.
In her acceptance speech, which Rolling Stone published in full, Swift looked back on the start of her career. She recalled signing a publishing deal with Sony at 14, writing almost every day on Music Row and learning her craft "by repetition", often in a small craftsman house housing the independent publisher Jody Williams Music. She credited co-writer Liz Rose and producer Nathan Chapman, who played every instrument on her early demos and later produced her debut album, and she joked that Paisley, her former tourmate, once filled her tour bus with live crickets.
The honour arrives days after Swift's self-titled debut album marked its 20th anniversary on Saturday. Rolling Stone also notes that she released her first country song in years, "I Knew It, I Knew You", earlier this year, and quotes her saying she wants to honour her country roots more and more. The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame site lists a 2026 class announcement, but the ceremony details and quotations in this article come from Rolling Stone's account and could not be independently confirmed.
