Taylor Swift got her start as a teenager with a guitar in Nashville, singing country songs long before she grew into one of the biggest stars in the world. On Monday night she went back to where it all began, and she left with an honor nobody her age had ever earned.
She was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the group that celebrates the people who actually write the songs. At the gala at Music City Center on Oct 26, she became the youngest person ever welcomed in.
The man who introduced her was Brad Paisley, the country singer and guitar ace known for tender hits like “Whiskey Lullaby.” Back in 2007, when Taylor was just 17, she opened his shows out on the road. So he was the natural choice to speak for her.
Then Taylor stood up and pretended to be shocked he’d shown up at all.
Here’s the night she made history in Nashville, with Brad right there beside her.
Local news report on Taylor Swift becoming the youngest member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame
“Brad Paisley, thank you so much for that induction,” she told the crowd. “I’m really surprised to see you here, actually, because we’ve been estranged since 2007. I think you know why.” The room leaned in. Then she explained. Brad had pulled a prank on that tour, and she says he took it way too far.
He filled her entire tour bus with live crickets. Thousands of them.
For months afterward, she couldn’t sleep. “Just chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp all night,” she said. It got so bad she thought about buying a pet lizard to go after them.
Of course the whole thing was a running joke between two friends. Taylor and Brad have been close for years, and “estranged” was just her playful way of setting up the story. By the end she let him off the hook. “It was a dark time,” she said. “But you know what? You did such an amazing job with that introduction. I think we can let bygones be bygones. Yeah, I think we’re good now.”
If you’re wondering whether these two really do torment each other, they’ve been at it a long while.
A much earlier Brad Paisley prank on a young Taylor Swift (not the crickets)
There was more to the evening than old jokes. Lainey Wilson, one of today’s biggest country singers, sang Taylor’s breakout hit “Love Story” in her honor. Taylor was so moved she called Lainey “one of the coolest people in the world.”
Not bad for a songwriter who first walked these Nashville streets as a kid. She came home the youngest name in the Hall, and she still had the room laughing about a bus full of bugs.