On December 2, Taylor Swift accepted Billboard‘s Woman of the Year award during Billboard’s Women in Music event at Capitale in New York. At 21, Swift is the youngest artist ever to receive this honor. Now, the lovely 21-year-old singer graces Billboard’s Women in Music special issue. Inside, she opens up and talks about her role models, touring, future plans, looking up to Kenny Chesney, and how her own words or actions can influence others.
Speaking about her own role models, Taylor told the magazine that, “I have a lot of role models. Faith Hill is a big role model. Reese Witherspoon is a role model of mine-she’s not in music, but I love everything she stands for. Shawn Colvin is a huge model for me. Her writing has been consistently great and thoughtful and wistful and beautiful. And also-[he’s] not a girl-but Kris Kristofferson has been a big role model for me.” “When I look at people who I feel have really lived their lives and recorded their lives in music so beautifully, those are my role models. They’ve all taught me lessons just by example,” the musician added.
Taylor also admits that Kenny Chesney has always been a huge hero to her. “From a business standpoint, someone I look up to, [because] he’s gotten to a place where he’s one of the only artists playing stadiums, is Kenny Chesney. Seeing a live Kenny Chesney show, you know what you’re going to get. You know it’s going to be an all-day party. He loves to sing about things he’s passionate about, and he’s made a brand without seeming like it’s a brand. I love that he’s gotten to a place where he can play such huge stadiums, and even when he’s supposedly taking downtime he’s playing stadiums. He’s always been a huge hero of mine,” the young star says.
In the interview with Billboard, Taylor Swift also confesses that she had moments when she just wanted to forget. “Not an entire year, but I’ve had a six-month period I’ve wanted to forget-whether you’re talking about criticism or an awful breakup or whatever trauma you happen to be going through. Every single one of us has a few months here or there that feel like dark months. For me, what helps me with sad times or frustration or rejection is writing songs about every one of those emotions, and for some reason, after I do that and I’m proud of the song, things make a little more sense to me,” she explains.
Asked on whether she has an idea where she wants to be in 2020, Swift admitted that, “As far as in the next seven years, I’ll be 28 or 29, so I don’t know. It just depends who I meet. But I’ve always hoped that I continue to write music for the rest of my life, and the clearest future I see is always my next album because I’m always obsessed with the latest song I’ve written, my newest idea about the newest thing for my newest album. That’s been my obsession for the last six months to a year.”
Taylor has numerous fans who see her as a real role model. The singer believes that, “As you enter down a career path it becomes very clear what that career path is going to ask of you. One of the things that is a huge part of making music and putting it out into the world is understanding that you now have a role in shaping the lives of the next generation. And you can either accept that role or you can deny it and ignore it and say it’s a parent’s job to raise their kids. But the reality is what you wear matters. If you’re a singer and on TV and in the living room of some 12-year-old girl, she’s watching what you’re wearing and saying and doing.”
The singer added that, “For me, when Faith Hill performed on an awards show, everything mattered-everything she said, did, wore, I tried to copy it. That’s what little girls do, so there is a big responsibility and I take it very seriously.”
Photos courtesy of Billboard