Swift talked about her 2006 'Taylor Swift' album as it was just beginning to catch traction with pop fans, in an interview now published in full for the first time
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Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic
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Michael Buckner/ACMA Today, Oct. 24, 2026, marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Taylor Swift‘s self-titled debut album. It would take at least a few years before anyone really thought of this as a monumental or transformative event — for country music, and then for pop, and then for pop culture as we knew and continue to know it. Who could have known when she was singing about looking for “A Place in This World” while being on “The Outside” at 16 that she’d go on to become the music world’s ultimate insider and biggest star? A visitor from the future making any such claims in October 2006 would’ve been laughed back into his time machine, as Swift’s team was virtually begging to interest journalists in interviews and strugglig to convince country radio to take a chance on a kid who checked off exactly zero of the right boxes.
It’s unknown whether Swift is baking a cake or doing anything else to celebrate her baby turning 20. She’s not marking it by doing anything so obvious or fan-servicing as putting out a deluxe version of “Debut” (as it’s come to be informally called, for expedience). She’s leaving the world of Swifties to throw their own party for the record that changed everything, first of all for the star herself, but also in starting the process of dramatically resetting expectations for just how open and confessional pop superstars would forever afterward be asked to be, especially as women took over after the boy-band wave washed back out to sea.
Speaking of time machines: Let’s take one back to when “Debut” was cresting, albeit still far from the peaks that she would reach with its followups. I interviewed Swift at length for Entertainment Weekly on a couple of occasions between the release of her first album and “Fearless.” The first time was in early 2007 when she was getting her hair and makeup done for the ACMs in Las Vegas. The second and more substantial interview was in January 2008, at an In-N-Out burger joint just outside of Universal City. Hard as it is to believe now, only one person approached her for an autograph during the entire hour-plus that we were sitting there enjoying our double-doubles. The vast majority of her success at that point had been in the country sphere, which was much more walled-off from pop then than it is now. And with L.A. not being country central, that might explain why we were able to talk virtually uninterrupted. But MTV was just then starting to experiment by giving a “pop remix” of “Teardrops on My Guitar” some spins, hoping this Nashville cowgirl would be more of a turn-on than turn-off to the “TRL” crowd. How brave of them, right?
Only a few hundred words’ worth of excerpts from that In-N-Out interview made it into my coverage at the time. Now, for the 20th anniversary of “Taylor Swift,” I revisited those tapes and am pleased to bring up a largely unabridged Q&A taken from that conversation, for the first time, offering a good deal of insight into her early career and how she was thinking at the time about the songs on “Debut,” now that she was a month or so into being a wisened woman of 18.
Looking back on my notes, I remember being struck by a culinary peculiarity that might have counted as a dieting tip: Swift didn’t drink he entire shake; she used it as a dipping sauce for her fries. I might have to revisit that Universal City In-N-Out this weekend, sit at the same table and see if she was onto something with that dining formula. Hundreds of millions of U.S. album and singles certifications later, one tends to put some faith in her judgment.
Swift: [Talking to then-publicist Paula Erickson, who is collecting her order.] I want a No. 2 with no onions and a chocolate shake… [Turning to me.] It doesn’t count if you eat it out of town. That’s a rule.
Since you’re not from around here, when was your first In-N-Out experience?
My first In-N-Out Burger experience was probably about a year ago. I became addicted, and it’s a deep love. It runs deep.
Your publicist, Paula, and I had a disagreement. She said she loves coming here but hates the fries.
How could she say that? How could she say that? Oh, gosh. No, the fries are amazing. She just needs to open up her mind to fresh French fries. They make everything fresh. How could you not like that?
You were on the Leno show last night. How was that?
That was my second time playing Leno. It’s cool, he’ll bring you a present in the dressing room every time. The first time it was a watch; the second time it was this really cool blanket. Jay always comes and says hi, no matter who you are or where your single is on the chart.
I’ll tell you a secret: I’ve been in the dressing room with artists a number of times, and Jay always stops in, but I have not seen him bring anybody else a gift.
[Laughs.] They just know how to treat their guests.
You have two songs charting — “Our Song” is huge at country, and “Teardrops on My Guitar” is just starting to give you some of your first top 40 airplay. Was it tough to decide which to do for Leno?
Whichever one is No. 1. For me, it was kind of a no-brainer to play “Our Song,” because it just got its sixth week at No. 1 on the country charts. And on “Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve,” I got to play both. But when there’s a choice for me, I usually pick the one that’s higher up on the charts. I’m gonna milk this No. 1 for all it’s worth.
It’s surprising neither of the two earlier songs went No. 1 at country, in retrospect [“Teardrops on My Guitar” peaked at No. 2].
I was lucky enough to have the songs impact really well with people. They didn’t ever get to No. 1 chart status, but I felt like they both did something really good for my career. But having my first No. 1 be a song that I wrote by myself in 9th grade for my talent show in high school, that’s kind of surprising. I didn’t even see that one coming. So it’s very exciting to be No. 1 and stay No. 1.
Taylor Swift during 2007 CMT Music Awards – at The Curb Event Center at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. FilmMagic, Inc There are probably people who are still suspicious because of your age, that you are really writing the songs… but looking at which ones you wrote by yourself, no one can look at “Our Song” and doubt that you’re a songwriter.
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