"let's start right now"

“I got in a lift once, my parents were there, this is a really random story. And Taylor Swift was in the lift. I was in the lift, Harry was in the lift, Ed Sheeran, and my parents. And the lift was going up and he just kept going turning around to me going, ‘Bass.’ And that’s all he was saying. 'Bass.’ So that’s one of my favorite party stories.”

Taylor Swift the celebrity is such a magnet for attention, she can distract from Taylor Swift the artist. But Swift was a songwriter before she was a star, and she’ll be a songwriter long after she graduates from that racket. It’s in her music where she’s made her mark on history – as a performer, record-crafter, guitar hero and all-around pop mastermind, with songs that can leave you breathless, or with a nasty scar. She was soaring on the level of the all-time greats before she was old enough to rent a car, with the crafty guile of a Carole King and the reckless heart of a Paul Westerberg – and she hasn’t exactly slowed down since then.