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That's plushcare.com/weight loss. From

1:06

the Times and the Sunday Times, this

1:08

is the story. I'm Jane Mulkerins.

1:16

I'm just driving up the

1:18

road where

1:20

Taylor Swift spent much

1:23

of her childhood and

1:26

why I'm missing in Pennsylvania.

1:30

For three weeks, the Times and Sunday

1:32

Times' Megan Agnew went on what I

1:34

can only describe as one of the

1:37

most envy-inducing reporting missions I have ever

1:39

heard of, tracing the

1:41

trail of Taylor Swift. From

1:49

Pennsylvania to New Jersey to

1:51

Tennessee, Megan set out

1:53

to speak to everyone and anyone who

1:56

might have known the pop sensation before

1:58

she was a pop sensation. And

10:00

did you get the impression that quite a lot of journalists

10:02

do turn up at their door on the swift trail? Yes,

10:05

I did there, but that was really the

10:07

only place that I did. Everywhere

10:09

else I kind of expected it

10:11

to be this really well trodden

10:14

route. And

10:16

I just, you know, the conversations that I had

10:18

with my editors before was like, just see how

10:20

far you get. See where you get

10:22

to. It's probably been done a million times and people will

10:24

probably be reluctant to speak to

10:26

you. But every door that I

10:28

knocked on and every number I called, someone put

10:30

me in touch with six more people who'd known

10:32

her or school friends or writing

10:35

buddies or, you know, it was

10:37

actually a really extraordinary story to

10:39

work on as a reporter because

10:41

all of these doors just kept

10:44

opening. And it wasn't like these

10:46

people had spoken a million

10:48

times before. Some of them had, but

10:50

really not all of them. So

10:53

tell me about some of the people who did open their

10:55

doors to you and some of the people who spoke to

10:57

you about Taylor growing up. When

10:59

she was in first grade, I just this

11:02

just kills me when she was in first

11:04

grade, I had them

11:06

all do self portraits of

11:09

what they would be

11:11

or look like in the

11:13

year 2024 as president. And

11:17

it's not far from it because she's me

11:19

endorse one of the, you know, people.

11:24

So one of her teachers, Barbara Lenzi,

11:26

whose house I went over to in

11:28

Pennsylvania, who was this like fabulous art

11:30

teacher of hers who had

11:33

her for four or five years, I

11:35

think. And she

11:37

had this old DVD

11:40

that Scott Swift actually

11:42

made for all of the teachers, which

11:45

was a performance of Taylor at

11:47

the school singing some songs

11:49

that she'd written. And

11:52

lovely Barbara Lenzi, the teacher, had

11:54

kept this one old banger of

11:56

a TV in the corner of

11:59

her house. because it was the

12:01

only one that could play this old DVD.

12:04

She couldn't find any other way to play it, so

12:06

that was the reason that she had the TV in

12:08

the house. And on came

12:10

Taylor. Oh, yeah, I'm getting here. Cheers.

12:19

I think it clears that right bar.

12:21

Yes. He

12:26

said 200, please. Is

12:29

this too much wind on you? It's great. Because

12:31

it gets feeling. My

12:38

dad is taking this. And

12:44

these souls that she was singing, she was 13, she

12:47

was coming back to the school to perform for the little

12:49

kids, were so similar

12:51

to the ones that she

12:53

sings now in the way that she sees the world.

12:56

So I've got the lyrics in front of me. I've

12:59

been to a lot of lonely places, being

13:02

here on the outside, looking in, nobody

13:04

ever lets me in. And

13:08

that sort of feeling of

13:11

being separate to everything else,

13:15

I think, is still something that

13:18

she sings about now. So you could

13:20

hear the echoes of who she is and what she was

13:22

writing even then. And

13:26

I've been to a lot of lonely places, living

13:32

here on the outside. Oh,

13:37

I just heard chills. And

13:41

when you were watching these videos, what

13:43

impression did you get of the 13-year-old

13:45

Taylor? Well, she

13:47

did act like she was famous. I

13:49

mean, she is literally 13, performing to

13:51

a bunch of 6-year-olds in an assembly hall. And

13:56

this bottle of water kind of

13:58

appears from this disembodied house. hand

14:00

in between one of the

14:02

songs when she's just taking questions from the audience.

14:05

And without looking, she just sort of takes

14:07

it and opens it and sips it and

14:09

puts it down next to her as if

14:12

she is this super storied

14:14

star already and has been performing

14:16

in pubs and clubs and concert

14:18

halls for decades. It was kind

14:21

of hilarious. Her primary school

14:23

rider, which is the water bottle. Yeah.

14:26

So tell us about how getting started

14:28

in music happens. How does she go

14:30

from playing a school assembly

14:33

for six-year-olds to actually becoming

14:35

a recording star? Well,

14:37

she had lots of guitar lessons, which

14:40

is how she learned to write

14:42

songs. Then she

14:44

enters this karaoke competition in Pennsylvania when

14:46

she's about 11, which she wins, which

14:48

puts her up on stage in front

14:51

of people at these sort of rural

14:53

country fairs, essentially, in the area.

14:57

And I spoke to the guy who performed

14:59

with her and apparently she just sort of

15:01

walked straight up on stage and said, like,

15:03

hi, everybody, my name's Taylor. And, you know,

15:05

it's like speaking as if she's on

15:08

stage in the assembly hall rather than in front of

15:10

tens of thousands of people. And

15:13

then her parents took

15:15

her one spring

15:17

break to Nashville. And

15:19

that is where she drove up

15:21

and down music row, which is where

15:24

everything is. And she knocked on doors

15:26

with this little demo tape that she

15:28

had recorded. And there were some covers

15:30

on there. I think, hopelessly devoted to

15:32

you might have been on there from

15:35

her time in Greece, which

15:37

kind of feels apt for her, right? And

15:40

she handed them out and said, I want a

15:42

record deal. Coming

15:52

up, 13 year

15:54

old Taylor does get that record

15:56

deal and the whole

15:58

Swift family upsticks. to the

16:00

cradle of country music. I'm

16:04

just driving down music row in

16:06

Nashville, which is where

16:08

Taylor came with her mother, driving

16:10

up and down as an 11-year-old, I think.

16:15

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18:03

today. So

18:16

Megan, you've been taking us through Taylor

18:18

Swift's early life, the road to stardom

18:20

from Pennsylvania when she was primary school

18:23

child. You said the next stop was

18:25

Nashville. Tell us a little bit about

18:27

that. When did the Swift's move to

18:29

Music City? So they moved

18:31

full time there when she was 14 years

18:33

old. Now, from

18:36

what I understand, the family had no

18:38

connection to it whatsoever. They

18:41

moved there to help her become

18:43

a star. I mean,

18:45

how many times can you remember begging

18:47

your parents for something as a kid

18:49

and them saying, no, that's what she

18:51

did? And they said yes. So they

18:54

moved to Hendersonville, which was

18:56

this super wealthy town

18:58

on the northern

19:00

outskirts of Nashville where Johnny

19:02

Cash lived. And

19:05

she went to high school there. And

19:07

she had a development deal. She

19:09

was the youngest singer-songwriter, actually, that

19:12

Sony had ever signed. Wow. So

19:15

she's in a city full

19:17

of incredible musicians and singer-songwriters.

19:20

And has she got a

19:22

record deal at this point? Has she

19:24

been signed? She belongs to a label. She

19:27

belongs to RCA, which is a

19:29

subsidiary of Sony Records. And

19:32

she's on what we think is a

19:34

sort of developmental deal, whereby she makes

19:36

some music sort of experimentally. And then

19:38

the record label will decide whether or

19:40

not they want to keep her on.

19:42

Right, OK. So she's still going to

19:44

school at this point. And what do

19:47

her schoolmates think of her? Did you

19:49

manage to talk to any of them?

19:52

I spoke to some of them. And

19:55

they sort of thought she was a bit

19:57

of a pain. They... obviously

20:00

lived in Nashville and

20:02

she turned up and she basically said, I'm

20:05

going to be a star. I'm here to make

20:07

it. And they all kind

20:09

of rolled their eyes and thought

20:12

she was a bit of a brat. She lived

20:14

in this big house and her parents drove an

20:16

enormous car and they had a boat and jet

20:18

skis and she was gorgeous

20:21

and had been in this

20:23

Abercrombie and Fitch modeling campaign. So they

20:26

found her a bit tiresome. Then

20:28

she starts dating this guy. He's

20:30

kind of like a wealthy, popular

20:32

guy at school. So that

20:34

kind of upset some of the girls

20:37

who'd been desperately trying to win his

20:39

attention for years. Then

20:41

they broke up and

20:43

months later there was a school talent contest.

20:46

And bearing in mind, she'd basically

20:48

just got to Nashville and she was 14 years old, 15

20:50

years old. She

20:53

wrote the song, Teardrops, on my guitar, which

20:55

was about him. And she performed

20:57

it in front of the whole school, her ex.

21:00

Her ex's new girlfriend and

21:03

sort of named him in it. And

21:05

everyone was like, Crikey,

21:08

who is this girl? How ballsy of her

21:11

to do that? And

21:13

it made me think back again to all of

21:15

the albums and the songs that she's sung about

21:17

her exes in front of the whole world since

21:19

then. Yeah, I mean, I've

21:21

definitely been at the Victoria's

21:23

Secret show when at least one of her

21:25

exes was in the audience while she performed.

21:29

Oh my gosh. It's classic

21:31

Taylor, isn't it? Obviously the die was set very

21:33

young. This is her M.O. Totally,

21:35

totally. So they kind of thought she

21:37

was a brat,

21:40

a lot of them. And

21:42

she was popular. I think she had some

21:44

struggles in middle school at Pennsylvania, but she

21:47

was popular and preppy. And she

21:49

did okay by the sounds of things. Okay,

21:52

so in school, she's popular. She's dating the guy

21:54

that everyone wants to date. She's breaking up

21:56

with him. She's singing a song about him in

21:59

front of him. What is your girlfriend? What's

22:01

she doing out of school? How's her music

22:03

career progressing? So after

22:05

school, her mum is dropping

22:07

her at these various songwriter

22:10

and producers' houses. I mean,

22:12

these are like epic Nashville

22:15

names. One of them, Angelo

22:18

Petraglia, who basically

22:20

put together Kings of Leon. He said, Kings

22:22

of Leon became Kings of Leon on my

22:24

front porch. He's like an old

22:26

New Yorker who's got this real rock background.

22:29

He started writing with her and this guy

22:31

called Robert Ellis Orell. Angelo

22:34

called me up one day and said, I've

22:37

got this 13-year-old girl coming over, and

22:41

you got to come over and help me write because

22:43

I don't know where to start with

22:45

a 13-year-old. And I

22:47

had a 13-year-old daughter. And

22:50

I said, I said,

22:52

I'll come over and help you. And

22:54

they kind of became this writing trio, this

22:56

funny writing trio. These two

22:58

older guys and Taylor, and

23:01

both of them just said that

23:03

she really had no fear.

23:06

They said that she drove

23:08

the sessions forward and she had a very clear

23:10

idea about what she wanted. And

23:13

that was this one story that Robert was telling

23:15

me when

23:17

Angelo suggested some line in

23:19

a song. Angelo

23:21

threw out a lyric line, and

23:24

she said, I don't know,

23:26

that sounds kind of trite. Stop.

23:31

And I

23:33

made both of my hands like little guns

23:35

and went, boom, look at that shot down

23:37

by the 13-year-old. It's

23:41

like, Angelo is 17 now and

23:44

has this roster of Grammys,

23:46

basically. But they all kind

23:48

of liked her. They were stunned by her. But

23:51

yeah, she knew what she wanted. Her

23:54

parents had built her this $10,000 recording studio in

23:58

their home. They'd bought her this share. as

24:00

former tour bus, that's what she

24:02

toured in when she was about 15, 16. You

24:06

know, she had it all, but she

24:08

also had this real extraordinary talent. They

24:10

said one in 10 songs that she'd

24:12

write would be absolute perfection. This was

24:14

her at 14. And then in the

24:16

years since they said, you know, that

24:19

ratio has only got higher. And

24:21

so she is plugging

24:23

away. She eventually gets

24:26

dropped by RCA. They say

24:28

they want 60 days to figure out

24:30

whether they want to

24:33

keep her. The Swiss kind of do

24:35

this huddle and then they decide to walk

24:37

away, which is really extraordinary. And

24:39

what someone said, you know, Sony made the

24:41

biggest mistake of their corporate career. And

24:44

then Robert Ellis Orell

24:47

has a showcase at the

24:49

Bluebird Cafe, which he invites

24:51

her to do with him.

24:53

I suggested that we just do a Bluebird

24:56

show. We would go to the

24:58

Bluebird Cafe, where, you know, take the songwriting

25:00

lecture of the world. And

25:02

we would have, I said, you know, it

25:04

would be three grizzled old songwriters. And

25:07

then it would come around to this teenager and

25:11

she's going to blow their minds. I mean,

25:13

she's just so confident. So, and it

25:15

was just something about it. And

25:17

I tried to go to the Bluebird Cafe.

25:20

It's still this like songwriting institution, but it

25:22

was closed for refurbishments.

25:25

And then, I was like, I was like,

25:27

I'm going to go get in there. Because you've

25:29

been, haven't you? Tell me, I'm desperate to know

25:32

how it was. I wish I could have been.

25:34

You must go back because it's one of

25:37

the most magical places I've ever been. It's

25:39

a tiny, tiny venue. And

25:41

it's not fancy. It's a tiny little

25:43

place where, you know, they serve wine

25:45

in, you know, sort of the cheapest

25:47

glasses imaginable. And it's very intimate. But

25:49

it's where these singer songwriters, whose names

25:51

you may never have heard of, but

25:53

who've written every hit you've ever heard

25:56

of, just play the round. Last time

25:58

I was there, I saw... or

26:00

the man who wrote The Gambler, Kenny Rogers,

26:02

The Gambler, which is one of my favourite

26:04

songs in the world. And he wrote it

26:06

and he sang it. And my dad has

26:08

never been so starstruck in his life. But

26:10

I can imagine what it was like for

26:12

Taylor playing in that venue, surrounded by all

26:14

of the music executives who go there three

26:16

times a week to find the next big

26:18

thing. Yeah, exactly. And they

26:21

did. Scott Borchetta, who had just

26:23

started this new label

26:25

called Big Machine, saw

26:28

her and he'd apparently been looking for

26:30

the person to build the label around

26:32

and she was it. They

26:35

just knew. And apparently he was one of

26:37

many who wanted to sign her. But he

26:39

got there and made the

26:41

best deal and said that is what

26:43

happened. And the rest is Swift

26:46

law, as you said at the beginning. Yeah,

26:48

until this sort of huge car

26:50

crash, right, in 2018 or so, when

26:54

Swift wanted to own her own music,

26:57

which Big Machine didn't allow her

26:59

to do. So yet again, as

27:01

they did with RCA, the Swifts,

27:03

I'm guessing, had a huddle. The

27:05

family, they still seem to work

27:07

closely together around Taylor's

27:09

career. And they walked away

27:11

from that as well, so

27:14

that she could own her own

27:16

music going forward. And hence all

27:18

of the re-records of all of

27:20

the albums that she'd previously recorded.

27:22

And then re-entering the charts and

27:24

re-entering everything. I mean, it was

27:26

like the savviest commercial decision ever.

27:29

And you can again see

27:32

the echoes of Scott Swift's

27:34

investment history and

27:36

experience through those decisions as

27:38

well. Yeah, I think we can add

27:40

to everything we said before about talent and focus

27:43

and the right family. Also

27:45

a tremendous business acumen these

27:47

days. Totally. I mean,

27:49

one of her school friends, actually, from

27:52

when she was 11 years old, there

27:55

was a sort of Pop Idols Juniors or

27:57

something that had just started in America. And

28:00

she asked her, she asked Taylor, are

28:02

you going to enter? And Taylor said

28:04

something like, no, I

28:06

don't think so because you're not allowed

28:08

to record an album in the first

28:10

two years after the deal. And

28:13

this like 11 year old was like, oh

28:15

my gosh, how do you know? So

28:18

Taylor was also incredibly, seemingly involved and

28:20

clued up on all of this. It

28:23

wasn't just her parents drawing up the

28:25

contracts and getting her to sign on

28:27

the dotted line. She knew

28:29

from an early age what she wanted. So Megan,

28:31

you spent an awful lot of time on

28:33

the trail of Taylor and talked to all

28:35

of these people from various parts of her

28:37

life. Did it change the

28:39

way that you came to understand her

28:42

stardom now and how she's got to

28:44

become probably the biggest superstar

28:46

that we've seen certainly in the last

28:48

couple of decades? Yes,

28:51

I think it made me realize that

28:53

she was a child star, but

28:56

she managed to time it

28:59

so brilliantly well, whereby

29:01

she kind of entered the public

29:04

consciousness when she was about 16.

29:07

So she wasn't seen as a child star

29:09

actually, she was seen as like a teen

29:11

pop idol. So I think

29:14

that timing worked brilliantly. And

29:16

secondly, I've just thought over and over

29:18

again, we can really

29:20

hammer home this like idea

29:23

of privilege, but the

29:25

fact is she had it and that's how it

29:27

was. But it

29:29

has made me think, gosh, I wonder how

29:32

many other people who had 60% of what

29:34

she did and

29:37

not all of it might have slipped

29:39

through the cracks along the way. It's

29:41

easy to see her parents as being

29:43

pushy or over involved, but

29:46

I think they could just see

29:48

that their kid was kind of

29:50

this freak, this like

29:53

sparkling freak and

29:55

they had to do something with her and they

29:58

did. She had this dr-

30:00

to drive forward and this

30:02

conscientiousness, which she later said was

30:04

instilled by her parents. Then,

30:07

to be born into a family with

30:09

money to allow her to do all

30:11

of these things, to a father who

30:13

was a stockbroker, who literally makes investments

30:15

on behalf of other people for a

30:17

living, and to a mother who had

30:19

lots of time to invest in her

30:21

daughter, as well as a background in

30:24

marketing. It is genuinely

30:26

a once-in-a-generation combination of all

30:28

of those things. Talent, money,

30:32

time, and

30:34

environment. And focus

30:36

and drive. Yeah, it's a bit of a superstar

30:39

storm, isn't it? Yes, exactly.

30:41

So to say one thing

30:43

overpowers the other, in my opinion, is

30:45

not right. You know, it really is

30:47

a collection of all of those things

30:49

at once. Thanks

31:09

so much to the Swift-agnostic,

31:11

hopefully now converted Swifty, Megan Agnew.

31:14

There was so much stuff from Megan's Taylor

31:16

tour that we just couldn't fit in this

31:18

podcast. So do read the full story at

31:20

thetimes.com with a subscription. This

31:23

episode was produced by Taryn Siegel.

31:25

The executive producer is Kate Ford.

31:27

And sound design and theme tune

31:29

by Mao Losetto. If

31:32

you've enjoyed what you heard today, please do leave us

31:34

a review. And make it a nice

31:37

one, wherever you're listening to this. Thanks

31:39

for listening. See you tomorrow. Welcome

32:05

to Sincerely Sloan presented by Uninterrupted.

32:08

I'm your host, professional tennis

32:10

player, wife, parent, and entrepreneur,

32:12

Sloan Stevens. As

32:14

an athlete and as a person, my journey

32:17

has had a lot of twists and turns,

32:19

from moments of adversity and doubt to unimaginable

32:21

triumph and satisfaction. Throughout

32:23

the season, I'm joined by some of the biggest

32:25

names in sports, entertainment, culture, and a few members

32:28

of my tribe. Our

32:30

conversations keep it real and push it past

32:32

skin deep. We

32:34

reveal the perspectives, routines, and products that allow

32:36

each of us to show up at our

32:38

best. Join me on

32:41

my journey of self-discovery and many, many

32:43

laughs along the way. Sincerely, Sloan.

32:48

It's okay if you aren't ready for kids right

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now. It's okay if you don't

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want to be a mom now or even ever.

32:56

It's nobody's decision but yours. But do you

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know it's not okay? Not

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knowing how effective your birth control is. Talk

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to your doctor about effective birth control options

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so you can make an informed decision. Tap

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to learn more.