share the same fate. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ she's a multiplatinum powerhouse. >> her ability to connect with people, these songs may be better than anybody ever. ♪ ♪ >> who made her name in country music. ♪ ♪ >> 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 that you could make an argument that taylor is the anti-miley. >> from the branding to the voice. >> mayer, lautner.

>> she's cuted as a truckload of baby ducks. >> your advice to her in love life? >> shotgun. a shotgun. >> she's shaking up the music world. i really like to challenge myself musically and 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. [ applause ] >> 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 very exciting. >> barely 18 years old and owning country music, a cma win, a platinum record and a grammy nomination. >> i mean, i never imagined that my life would be this magical. ♪ ♪ >> taylor allison swift has been writing her own fairytale since she was born. >> 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 pre-ordered her latest album 1989 named for the year she was born. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> i don't want to ever hear from this kid that we never did anything for her. not ever. >> taylor had a privileged and idyllic childhood. both her parent his careers in finance and she and her little brother austin were raised on a

12-acre christmas tree farm in redding, pennsylvania. dolly moore and her son lived next door to the swift family. dolly babysat 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. she really was such a sweetheart. >> she was a fantastically charismatic little child. ♪ >> or the professional photographer, snapped photo after photo of taylor for more than a decade. >> every time i took that camera and just pointed it at her boom, 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. ♪ twinkle, twinkle little star

>> 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 is all over the place. you can even tell each at that young age that there was something special about her. >> i love the fact that she his stars with her name. >> she had school teachers robin klein 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 a very talented writer, used very colorful language, mature for a fifth grade writer. >> taylor performed in school plays proving she had pipes, taking the lead in the local musical "bye-bye birdie". ♪ ♪ ♪ >> next, she took on the karaoke circuit. local country singer 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 tie my shoes. get out of here. she got better as she went along, and the finals she got to open the charlie daniels show. >> i'm the best there's ever been! >> next up -- "star-spangled banner". >> the national anthem at a philadelphia 76ers game. >> i think that gave her a taste at what super stardom was and looking around and saying you i think this is what i want to do with my life. >> she struggled socially during my mid will school years. >> i had this click of girls i used to hang around with and all of a sudden they didn't want to hang out with me anymore and i didn't know if 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 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 i came to nashville and just kind of knocked on doors of record labels like my mom was waiting in the car, and i had this little demo karaoke cd and would walk into every major label. the phone never rang, but taylor didn't stop. she mastered the guitar as seen here in her 2010 concert doc 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. >> somebody tells you they love you. >> turning hurts into hits would become her trademark. ♪ ♪ ♪ when you're 15 and your first kiss makes your head spin back ♪ >> coming up, taylor's unstoppable quest for fame, the swift family sells the farm. >> her dad said well, we're going. i said where are you going? he said nashville. >> i said how long are you going for? he said, the rest of our lives. i said what? ♪ ♪ when it comes to good nutrition...i'm no expert.

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♪ ♪ ♪ summer 20 04, 14-year-old taylor swift and her family moved to the home of 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. you know, they step off the bus and they've got big dream, 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 when you are 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 just got magnets on them, you know? you can just 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 that 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 on my first album and i'll never forget it. >> taylor swift's first single tim mcgraw dropped in june 2006. ♪ ♪ >> i hope you sing my favorite song. >> it was from her debut album taylor swift. >> my album is selling like freakishly amounts of -- i can't even believe the way it's selling right now. ♪ ♪ >> the single "our song" went to number one on the billboard country songs chart and that made her the youngest person in history to write and 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 the best moment of my life. >> and 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 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. >> i'm 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. >> 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 out to everybody in the room and she'd have a conversation with them. how did you like the show? >> frankie ballard toured with taylor in 2011 and says nobody connects with an audience like she does. >> oh, hi, nashville. >> i went to taylor's show here in nashville a year or so ago. >> thank you for coming tonight. >> i've never seen anything like it. ♪ ♪ >> i swear a couple of times i felt taylor was looking at me. ♪ >> the energy connection and the personal connection with her audience i would compare it to springsteen, 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 songwriting

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 the song ""15" that she wrote. >> the first time i heard her sing it it was a writer's night in new york city and she sang that and it was vince gil, trisha yearwood, taylor swift and me and she hits 15 and vince says listen to this lyric coming out of this girl. >> john rich co-wrote this song with taylor swift after she called him out of the blue. >> i said yeah. come on over and she pulls that guitar out and has some words already down and she starts tearing into this song the way i loved you. >> i said damn, that's great. she said you like it? i said let's work on the verses and 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. >> taylor said i brought that idea, that title to john and he was able to relate to it, and he's the complicated, frustrating messy guy in relationship. >> there you go. >> is it true? >> of course, it's true. yeah. >> that's the way i loved you. >> that song, along with "15" on are on "fearless," "fearless" had her first crossover hit which was on "you belong with me". >> she became the first country star to ever win a vma. >> best female video goes to -- taylor swift. >> as she was accepting the award kanye west bum rushed the stage and grabbed the microphone away from her. i'm happy for you, and i'll let

you finish, but beyons he one of the best videos of all time. >> this became a media frenzy. >> what a jerk. >> and a dope. >> i think he's an idiot and he's just a waste. >> it's a night that she went supernofa and even people that knew her in passing wanted to know who this artist was. >> the night i saw kanye pull the mike out of her hand i felt like somebody had just disrespected my little sister. >> wow! like i went, if i would have been in that room i would have whooped his ass, i would have tried. >> ahead, bad break-up his taylor seeing red. >> your advice to her then in the love life? >> um, a shotgun. a shotgun. ♪ ♪ really... i guess i did take some risks. anncr: bode, bode miller!!! trained a little bit differently. a little too honest sometimes. the media is useless. you were out of control. but not always.

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♪ someday i'll be big enough so you can't hit me and all you're ever going to be is mean ♪ 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 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 a few mistakes ago ♪ >> six years after launching her career in country, swift releases "red." an album with a whole lot of pop. ♪ i guess you didn't care >> why test the waters there? you know, 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 songwriting 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 are never, ever getting back together." are quintessential taylor swift songs of her taking the heartbreaks from her relationships and putting a gray hook behind them and turning them into huge pop hits. >> the album's lead single was an instant success. ♪ we are never, ever, ever, ever getting back together ♪ >> becoming swift's first song to ever hit number one on the billboard hot 100.

>> the wordplay in those songs, they're sassy, they're meant to sort of sting a little bit. it was a little bit of a, like, "f" you to anyone who had gotten in her way or in her heart's way. >> brilliant, sassy and instantly relatable. >> you can only hope that what you are saying resonates with people and that you're saying something that maybe helps them get through what they're going through. ♪ i guess you didn't care and i guess i liked that ♪ >> her song "i knew you were trouble" where you're singing about i've fallen for the wrong person before, i've gotten 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 becoming the fastest selling album in a decade. >> "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. >> but personal songs about the boys she dated -- >> john mayer, taylor lautner, conor kennedy, harry styles. >> -- had its downside. >> 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 damn near impossible. >> taylor swift hand picked 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. so 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. >> listen -- >> she's too young. >> so your advice to her, then, in the love life? >> advice to her is a shotgun. ♪ players going to play, play, play, play ♪ ♪ haters going to hate, hate, hate ♪ >> swift released a new album "1989" trading country for straight pop. ♪ breakers going to break, break, break ♪ >> i think it's really important to evolve musically. i think it's easier to stay the same, but i really like to challenge myself musically and kind of push the envelope. >> and 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 1 million copies. and 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, then she makes a record like "1989" and of course, all these people are growing up with her. >> but after her evolution to pop, country music was missing her. and she heard about it at the cmas. >> you can't turn on the tv or open up a newspaper or click on a website without being reminded of the epidemic we're all facing. >> and, 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. she's 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, but if you look at the lyrics, that is the way country songwriters write songs. she's a country songwriter. she knows what writing a song is all about. she knows what it means to, you know, not sand off the rough edges but put a magnifying glass on it. >> with her new single -- ♪ shake it off, shake it off >> -- 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 wrong 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. ♪ shake it off, shake it off >> at the moment, taylor swift

is having a whole lot of fun. and shaking it off just fine. ♪ on this episode of "death row stories," a triple murder of unimaginable brutality. >> this is the one case that screamed out for the death penalty. >> an accused soldier who can't even convince his own lawyer. >> i thought he was guilty until all get out. >> until the state's case fell apart. >> i felt like i was sending an innocent man to prison. >> and a shocking twist makes legal history. >> take a deep seat. i've got something to tell you. >> there's a body on the water. >> he was butchered and murdered. >> many people proclaim their innocence. >> in this case, there are a number of things that stink. >> this man is remorse