Taylor Swift, at 18, poised to be pop superstar

By The Associated Press

Published: November 14, 2008

UNCASVILLE, Conn. — Taylor Swift remembers the day she walked into one of her writing sessions — filled with anger.

Taylor Swift

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The boy she liked was acting up, and the singer could barely get out a greeting before unloading her frustration on co-writer Liz Rose.

"I walked into Liz’s house, and I said, ‘I can’t believe what’s going on right now, I’ve got to tell you about this.’ I told her all about it,” says Swift. "She goes, ‘If you could say everything you were thinking to him right now, what would you start with?’”

So Swift began venting: "I would say to him, ‘I’m sick and tired of your attitude, I feel like I don’t even know you’ … and I just started rambling, and she was writing down everything that I was saying, and so, we turned it into a song.”

That song, "Tell Me Why,” on her hotly anticipated sophomore CD, "Fearless,” is an example of why Swift — just weeks away from her 19th birthday — is not only one of country music’s brightest and most popular young stars, but is also poised to become pop’s next superstar act.

"I think the reason why all of that has started happening is because I was writing about what was happening in my life and I don’t hold back on details and I mention people’s names and I like my songs really personal,” Swift said in an interview on her swank tour bus, a few hours before a recent concert at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut.

"I guess when you write your songs like you’re writing in a diary, more people can relate to it than you think. I thought because my songs were so personal that nobody would be able to relate to them … because I said all these names that were only significant to me,” she says. "But apparently they were significant to more people than just me.”

Since Swift made her debut in 2006 with her self-titled CD, she’s sold 3 million albums.

"I’d like to think that country music is where I live, country music is who I am, but I’m lucky enough to have other people listening who aren’t necessarily core country music fans,” she says.

What distinguishes Swift from her peers is her songwriting. Swift wrote or co-wrote every song on her first CD. Sony ATV made her the youngest songwriter they’ve signed.

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