Taylor Swift, Inducted Into Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Says ‘There Is No Music Community Like This Music Community. I Know, I Checked All the Communities’

Oct 26, 2026 7:55pm PT Taylor Swift, Inducted Into Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Says ‘There Is No Music Community Like This Music Community. I Know, I Checked All the Communities’

By Chris Willman

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Chris Willman

Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic

ChrisWillman

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Taylor Swift looked back on her earliest days crafting songs in Music City as she was inducted Monday into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, becoming its youngest member at 36. Swift was inducted by former tourmate Brad Paisley, whom she teased, and serenaded by Lainey Wilson, whom she praised, before launching into a lengthy speech about what she learned in the trenches of Music Row as a teenager.

“I was lucky enough to get a publishing deal with Sony Publishing when I was 14, and I just hit the ground running,” she told the audience at the Music City Center ceremony. “I was like a sponge, and I have really curly hair and it was yellow, so I kind of looked like a sponge too,” she quipped.

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