'Magical Chaos'
The icon was inducted into the institution by director Steven Spielberg
Taylor Swift reflected on her career and celebrated the craft of songwriting as she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame Thursday, June 11, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.
Swift began her speech by sharing that when asked by the institution who she wanted to have induct her, she named Steven Spielberg. Within an hour, the legendary director and his wife, actress Kate Capshaw, were on the phone with Swift — Spielberg said he would be “thrilled to be here.” Swift, who was “blown away” by his answer, asked if it would be difficult for him to attend the ceremony as his film, Disclosure Day, was releasing at midnight on the same day. That’s when Capshaw responded with words of wisdom Swift will never forget: “Good and true things are easy.”
The Grammy winning singer-songwriter continued, “If I look back at my entire 23 year career in music, the ups and downs, the industry battles, the trials and tribulations, the tears and the cheers, and the dog piling of doubt, the criticisms of fair and unfair, the complete loss of privacy, the world tours and the ego wars and the twists of fate, the absolute magical chaos of this path that I chose when I was too young to remember it ever being a choice at all: songwriting was the easiest thing I ever did.” Swift added, “Not because it didn’t take effort — definitely did — not that it wasn’t frustrating at times — because it could be — and not that my songwriting didn’t haunt me relentlessly until I cracked the perfect internal rhyme scheme for the third line, the second verse of the hook, where my teachers called me out in class without paying attention — because that definitely happened.”
