>> heavy. >> set it on your tongue, middle, front, back? >> roll it up you in your tongue. >> roll it up in the tongue. like that. >> you're not going to want to miss that. make sure to check up on the latest episode "mike rowe, somebody's got to do it." but right now, taylor swift. ♪ ♪ we are never, ever ever getting back together ♪ >> she's a multiplatinum powerhouse. >> her ability to connect with people, maybe better than anybody ever. ♪ >> who made her name in country music. ♪ ♪ and all you're ever gonna be is mean ♪ >> she just had a charge in her that was twice her age. >> for a decade, she's been building an empire and an image. >> i think you could make an

argument that taylor is the anti-miley. >> from the branding to the boys. >> she's as cute as a truckload of baby ducks. >> so your advice to her then in love life? >> shotgun. ♪ shake it off >> she's shaking up the music world. >> i really like to challenge myself musically. push the envelope. ♪ tonight, in the cnn spotlight, the newly crowned princess of pop, taylor swift. ♪ >> i can't even believe that this is real. >> the country music awards, november, 2007. >> i can't even believe this. and this is definitely the highlight of my senior year. thank you, cma. >> a big night, and a big prize

for taylor swift. nabbing the cma horizon award for best new artist. >> i mean, i'm not even like an adult yet, legally. it's really exciting. >> barely 18 years old, and owning country music. a cma win, a platinum record. and a grammy no, ma'mination. >> i never imagined my life would be this magical. >> taylor allison swift has been writing her own fairytale since she was born. >> do you want to see your daughter? >> yeah. >> she's all dolled up. >> oh, my god. >> here she is, just a few days old. taylor posted the home video for fans who preordered her latest album "1989" named for the year she was born. ♪ welcome to new york >> the last thing i ever want to hear from this kid we never did anything for her. not ever. >> taylor had a privileged and

idyllic childhood. both parents had careers in finance and she and her little brother austin were raised on a 12-acre christmas tree farm in reading, pennsylvania. dolly and her son lived next door to the swift family. dolly baby-sat taylor for years. >> i didn't have a little granddaughter. so she kind of filled that space for me. i loved her beautiful, almost white hair. and her little clear blue eyes. you just wanted to hug her, because she really was such a sweetheart. >> she was a fantastically charismatic little child. >> the professional photographer snapped photo after photo of taylor for more than a decade. >> every time i took that camera and just pointed at her, boom, boom, boom. and that's when i told her parents, this girl is going to be a superstar. >> taylor was a natural, and a

ham. ♪ >> there are great videos of a very, very young taylor swift just running around the house at 2, 3 years old, singing pop and country hits. her hair all over the place. you can even tell, even at that young age, there is something special about her. >> i love the fact that she's got stars with her name. >> reporter: she had grade school teachers robin kline and nancy boyer at hello. >> i thought, one day i'm going to read about her, one day i'm going to vote for her. one day she's going to perform open heart surgery. >> she was very talented writer. used very colorful language. mature for a fifth grade writer. >> taylor performed in the school plays, proving she had pipes. taking the lead in the local musical, "bye-bye birdie." ♪ ♪ when i hear boys whistle

>> next, she took on the karaoke circuit. pat garrett ran the contests. >> she was poised, and handled the crowd quite well for an 11-year-old. i said when i was 11, i couldn't even tie my shoes. now get out of here. she got better as she went along. and in the finals, she got to open the charlie daniels show. >> because i'm the best there's ever been! >> next up -- the national anthem a philadelphia 76ers game. >> i think that that probably gave her a little taste of what superstardom is like. looking around tens of thousands of people and thinking this is what i want to do with my life. >> taylor found an audience, but struggled socially during her middle school years. >> i had this, you know, click of girls i used to hang out with and all of a sudden they didn't want to hang out with me anymore. you know? and i don't know if it was

because he have weekend i was at songwriter acoustic nights or whether i was trying to do something completely different than what they were trying to do. but all of a sudden the friends were gone. >> singing became her salvation in these painful years. she poured her heart into her music and relentlessly lobbied her mother to take her to music row. >> when i was 11, he came to nashville, and just kind of knocked on doors of record labels. like my mom was like waiting in the car. and i had had this little demo karaoke c.d. and would walk into every major record label and i was like, hey, i'm taylor, i'm 11, i want a record deal, call me. >> the phone never rang. but taylor didn't stop. she mastered the guitar, as seen here in her 2010 concert don. and then wrote and recorded her first song. ♪

>> "lucky you" she wrote it the day she learned how to play guitar. and if you listen to that song, it is very characteristic of the way that taylor will write songs. it's about not fitting in at school. of being the outsider. >> turning hurts into hits would become her trademark. ♪ ♪ your first kiss makes your head spin ♪ coming up, taylor's unstoppable quest for fame. the swift family sells the farm. >> her dad said, well, we're going. i said, yeah. where are you going? he said, nashville. i said how long are you going for? he said, well, the rest of our lives. i said, what?

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summer, 2004. 14-year-old taylor swift and her family moved to the home of

honhon honky tonks. big country stars and big country dreams. >> i think about that move to nashville like the actresses in the '40s coming to hollywood. they step off the bus, they've got big dreams, wide eyes. >> and in taylor's case, she was also carrying some middle school angst she had turned into songs. >> i think everybody goes through a period of time like that, where you're just so alone. and instead of letting it drag me down into a downward spiral, i let music lift me up. and i wrote songs about it. ♪ baby when i look at you with them baby blues ♪ >> even in a city full of talented performers like duo big and rich, it quickly became clear that taylor swift had something special. ♪ some artists, they've just got magnets on them, you know. you can feel them when they come in. >> she's got the "it." she has the "it." >> rca saw "it" and heard it.

signing her to a development deal, which she walked away from a year later. >> she had a collection of songs that she really wanted to get out there. and rca didn't think she was ready. >> she landed here, nashville's blue bird cafe, the place for aspiring singer/songwriters. she was heard and quickly signed by a music executive about to launch his own company. >> i ended up on a record label that let me write every song of my first album, and i'll never forget it. >> taylor swift's first single, tim mcgraw, dropped in june 2006. ♪ when you think tim mcgraw >> it was from her debut album, "taylor swift." >> my album is selling like freakishly amounts of -- i can't even believe, like the way that it's selling right now. ♪ and he says >> the single "our song" went to

number one on the billboard hot country songs chart, made her the youngest in history to perform a number-one country song. the first of many firsts. it was a platinum effort right out of the gate. she was just 16. >> taylor swift tapped into a young market that the country music industry was basically ignoring. and they were young girls. >> oh, my gosh. this is like the best moment of my life. >> one thing that makes taylor swift unique is her relationships with fans. that's thanks in part to social media. >> myspace has been one of the things that launched me as an artist. >> she had an energy in social media that no one had really done up to that point. and, yeah, she was connecting with her fans, because she was on there talking to them all of the time. >> currently hanging out with my band in downtown, philadelphia. >> myspace morphed into video blogs. instagram and twitter. >> if you follow her on twitter,

or on instagram, you feel like you could be best friends with taylor swift. >> taylor! >> she works hard to connect with followers in the real world too. hosting hour-long parties for randomly picked fans after every concert. >> she would go around to everybody in the room. she would have a conversation with them, and how did you like the show. >> frank' ballard toured with taylor in 2011 and says nobody connects with an audience like she does. >> oh, hi, nashville! >> you know, i went to taylor's show here in nashville a year or so ago. >> thank you for coming tonight. >> i had never seen anything like it. ♪ >> i swear, a couple times i felt taylor was looking at me. the energy connection and the personal connection with her audience, i would compare it to springstein, but it was a level above. the energy between her and the fans is phenomenal. >> good night, nashville!

>> it helps that she has bruce springsteen's song-writing skills. >> taylor is one of the greatest songwriters ever to put a pencil to a piece of paper. >> many nashville artists agree. >> i go back to this song "15" that she wrote. what a knockdown lyric that is. ♪ because when you're 15 >> the first time i heard her sing it, it was a writer's night, and she sang it and it was vince gill, trisha yearwood, taylor swift and me. she hits "15" and vince is going, wow. and trish is like holy cow, listen to this lyric coming out of this girl. ♪ i'm screaming and fighting >> john rich co wrote this song with taylor swift after she called him out of the blue. >> said, yeah, come on over. and she pulls that guitar out and has some words down and starts tearing into this song "the way i loved you."

and i said, damn, that's great. and she said, yeah, you like it. and i said, yeah, let's work on the verses. so it was 90 minutes, two hours, max, and the song was done. "the way i loved you" is about dating mr. right while loving mr. wrong. >> so taylor said i brought that idea, that title, to john. he was able to relate to it. he's that complicated, frustrating, messy kind of guy in a relationship. >> yeah. >> there you go, john. >> is it true? >> of course it's true. yeah. ♪ that's the way i loved you >> that song along with "15 kwoefgs" are on "fearless" her second album. >> it was her second crossover hit which is "you belong with me." >> and became the first country star to ever win a vma. >> the female video goes to -- taylor swift. >> and as she was accepting the

award, kanye west bumrushed the stage, grabbed the microphone from her -- >> i'm really happy for you, i'm going to let you finish. but bee yaens had one of the best videos of all-time. >> this became a media frenzy. >> what a jerk. >> he is a dope. >> i just think he's an idiot. he's just a waste. >> kanye got a little nuts last night. >> it's the night she went super nova. even people who knew her in passing before really wanted to know who this artist was. >> the night i saw kanye pull the mic out of her hand, i felt like somebody had had just disrespected my little sister. like i went you know, if i would have been in that room, i would have whooped his ass. i would have tried. ahead, bad breakups have taylor seeing red. >> your advice to her, then, in the love life? >> um, a shotgun. a shotgun.

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♪ it was early 2012, taylor swift's worldwide tour was anything but mean. she just won her sixth grammy and had become one of the hottest country artists of the deca decade. >> there's something on that girl that is bigger than she is. and when she comes in the room, you go, who is that? >> then -- ♪ once upon a time >> six years after launching her career in country, swift releases red. an album with a whole lot of

pop. ♪ >> why test the waters there? >> she's doing so great in country. >> this had to be because she was being true to herself. she really diversified her sound. which was not only a way for her to just expand her song writing overall, but also a way to gain a new audience. ♪ i remember when we broke up the first time ♪ >> in true taylor swift style, the songs were personal and focused on her recent string of rocky romances. >> red is a breakup album. songs like "i knew you were trouble" ♪ i knew you were trouble when you walked in ♪ >> "we're never ever ever getting back together" are taylor swift songs. >> the album's lead single was an instant success. ♪ we are never ever ever ever ever getting back together ♪

>> becoming swift's first song to ever hit number one on the billboard hot 100. >> the word play in those songs, they're sassy, meant to sort of sting a little bit. it was a little bit of a like f-u to anyone who got in her heart's way. >> instantly relatable. >> you can only hope that what you're saying resonates with people. ♪ in case you didn't care >> her song i knew you were trouble where you're singing about i've fallen for the wrong person before, i got my heart broken, if your heart's broken right now, you're not alone. >> that message clearly resonated with fans. red sold $1.2 million copies in

its first week. >> red was massive. she was no longer just segregated to country radio. that was a really big sort of catalyst in just launching her to the stratosphere. >> personal songs about the boys she dated. >> john mayer, taylor lautner, conner kennedy, harry styles. >> had its down side. >> she does have a tendency to have these relationships, she falls too hard, too fast, sometimes for the wrong guy, for short periods of time. >> yet the bumps with the boys didn't diminish the brand. >> you know how hard it would be to maintain such an image or such a reputation, if you weren't that person? it would be impossible. >> taylor swift handpick country sensation frankie ballard to tour with her in 2011.

>> when things go good, you get the credit. when things go bad, it's your fault. i still think about her in the back of my head, and think, what would taylor do? you know? what would taylor do. >> wwtd? >> i got it tattooed on my chest. >> by 2014, swift was ready for reinvention. she moved from nashville to new york. and swore off the boys. something john rich and big kenny fully support. >> honestly she's too young for a man in her life anyway. >> so your advice to her then in the love life? >> my advice to her is, a shotgun. ♪ players gonna play play play play play ♪ ♪ the haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate ♪ >> swift released a number album, 1989 trading country for trait pop. >> i think it's really important to evolve musically. it gets easier to stay the same.

i like to challenge myself musically and push the envelope. >> if there was any risk in leaving nashville behind, it paid off the first week of the album's release. >> not only is it the biggest week for an album in over a decade, it's also taylor's third consecutive record to sell more than a million copies, if that doesn't cement her as one of the biggest stars on the planet, i don't know what does. >> all of the fans she's had with her since the beginning, and then she makes a record like 1989, and, of course, all these people are growing up with her. >> after her evolution to pop, country music was missing her. and she heard about it at the cma's. >> you can't turn on the tv or open up a newspaper, click on a website without being reminded of the epidemic we're all facing. >> of course, we're talking

about postpartum taylor swift disorder. >> what do you say to the critics who say, how can you leave country behind? >> can we just get off her back for a minute? she's an artist, a songwriter, let her make whatever music she wants to. >> and john rich says, taylor swift is still country at heart. >> taylor swift can make a pop record all day long, if you look at the lyrics, that is the way country songwriters write songs. she is a country songwriter, she knows what writing a song is all about. she knows what it means to not sand off the rough edges, but put a rough edge on it. >> and with her new signal -- ♪ >> -- swift told good morning america she has an entirely new message. >> people will find anything about you and twist it to where it's weird or annoying or strange or bad. you have to not only live your life in spite of people who

don't understand you, you have to have more fun than they do. >> at the moment, taylor swift is having a whole lot of fun. and shaking it off just fine. me and the crew are on the road again, destination middle of nowhere. >> how far are we going? >> about seven miles in. >> why? >> because we're going to meet a man who lives out here. why would anyone live out here? to teach survival training. real survival training. you see, years ago, i did a show about