I Don’t Make Music To Seek Universal Validation – Taylor Swift

Popular singer Taylor Swift has shared how she copes with the ups and downs of fame. The 14-time Grammy winner was recently interviewed for a retrospective, career-spanning conversation for The Icon Sessions, presented by the Recording Academy’s Songwriters & Composers Wing.

According to Swift, she is solely focused on making music for fans who connect with her emotional truths rather than seeking universal validation.

Taylor added that she has decided to never allow the public’s perception of her to slow down her creativity.

Her words, “I go through several processes and coping mechanisms that I’ve gone through over the years.

And one of them is saying, ‘You chose this. You chose this every day. You could have opted out of this any day before it got unmanageably big.’ And I decided not to because I love it that much.

That’s just where it begins and where it ends.

Everything that comes with this ultimately is worth it as long as I get to still make music.

I realized that I’m making music because I’m playing for the fans. I’m putting this out for people who care about it and who look to music as a way to cope with their life in the way that I did.

I think that if you can actually go through all those checkpoints and realize that putting out music you’ve made that you love so much is not the path to universal validation, if you’re still doing it, then you love it for the right reasons.

No one taught me how to do it. I had to be taught how to entertain the crowd and learn choreography, and be less annoying, and navigate the industry, and fiercely protect my own sanity.

I had to learn all of that over time through difficult lessons, and massive amounts of trial and error, and chaos, and calamity.

The songwriting, for me, is pretty much the only thing I ever just naturally did.”