Taylor Swift Reveals Her Songwriting Process | Letterman

I have been on the show before, but I never got to sit here before. So this is very exciting. Thank you. Really? Exciting for you? Yeah! No, no. It's exciting for me. You see how that works? I couldn't be happier. For you, it's just another gig. But for me... Thank you, and thank you again. Oh, wow. I love the view. You've got a nice place here. Thank you for having me back. Well, you're a very gracious guest. When you have a new CD and stuff like that... You're just a kid, by the way, aren't you? Can I ask? Yeah, I better not. How old are you? 20. 20? Yeah. You're 20 years old. So when you won the Grammy for the album of the year, how old were you then? I was 20. I see. When was that? A couple of years ago? But now that you have the music... How long does it take you to write enough stuff to put on a CD? It took about two years. For me, one of the things I'm really proud about this CD... I wrote it by myself without any co-writers. So for two years, I was living life, and I kind of write in real time. Like, I write these moments in time. The songs are written when I'm feeling what it is I'm discussing in the song. So it's all sort of done when it's happening. Right. And was I right when I alluded to the biographical nature of some of the romantic circumstances depicted in the song? Yeah. I wonder sometimes if that would be a deterrent. If maybe a guy would say, Oh boy, I don't want a song written about me. Maybe I'll... You know what I mean? Maybe that'll... Has that ever come up? Yeah, but you know, this is the third album that I've been doing this. So they had fair warning at this point. And please don't take this the wrong way. You smell like expensive wood. What is that? That is the most unique compliment I've ever gotten. That's what that is. And believe me, it's very good. Thank you. I've never had a little of that before. It's just... It's a very, very subtle, very pleasing... It's funny. Remember, you started this, you came in here. Do you travel around the world now because of the CD and stuff? Oh yeah, definitely. We travel all over the world, and this is actually the first international release where the CD is released everywhere. And so I've been all over the place recently, like Italy and France and Japan and England. Now we know what a big star you are in the United States and North America. Is it comparable in all of these other countries? It's really fun in other countries. I love the fans there, and we get to play arenas, and it's really wonderful. And sometimes, I mean, it's interesting because you go over there and they don't speak the same language as you. So I always try to sort of adapt myself a little bit by learning a few phrases in whatever language. I think that's a great thing to do. Sometimes it fails miserably, but like... But when I'm in Japan, I just speak in Japanese the entire show. No, you don't. Yeah, I don't sing in Japanese, but I speak in Japanese. You're conversant in Japanese to get through like a 90-minute concert in Japan? Well, I mean, you just memorize some of it. You figure out what it means. Well, like, what do you say? Like, you go like, 楽しんで、大阪! And then you go like, ありがとうございます! 日本大好き、日本最高! 可愛い! Wow. What did you say? First I said, are you having fun, Osaka? Then I said, I love Japan. Then I said, Japan is awesome. And then I said, cute! Wow. Are fans in Japan more reserved than they are in other parts of the world? No, they're awesome. They go crazy? Yeah. They're amazing. It's so cool. Like, I love all the crowds from other places. And I really love it when people get really emotional. Like, because I'm a really emotional person. I get very excited very easily. And so when, like, people come up to me and start crying, I just, I don't know why, I like that. It's cool. They're crying because they can't believe that they're standing right in front of you. I hope that's why. Not like you're standing on their foot. Yeah. So do you have no free time? Because you're writing and traveling. Do you have free time? If you had free time, what would you do? Well, I have this nature phase thing right now. I really like walking in nature and being outside. I'm a very seasonal person right now. I love fall. And I love the fact that it's about to be winter. And then it's about to be Christmas. But I know what this is about. You grew up on a Christmas tree farm, is that right? Yeah. So where is that? Like, where? Upstate New York? Just a guess? That was in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania. I grew up on a Christmas tree farm. And I figured there are two ways that can go as far as, you know, forming who you're going to be in life. I mean, you can either be like, you end up being the person who, like, rolls their eyes at Christmas and is like, oh, I've had so much Christmas that I don't care about Christmas anymore. Is it really Christmas now? Or you can be like really obnoxious Christmas sweater gingerbread cookie girl. Why not? Raise your hand if you're her. Yeah, why not? And maybe that's what I'm picking up. And this is going to sound awful. But it's almost like a Christmas tree lot. But not that. Like, a Christmas tree lot is heavy on the pine. That's not what this is. This is something entirely different. But it's in the deciduous family. Or pine isn't deciduous. It was Douglas fir that we sold. So maybe it's kind of in the blood. No, no, no. I'm not nuts. You know, they say. Like, you smell like a tree is what you're saying. No, no, no, no, no. You know, they say before you have a massive stroke, you smell ham. It's one of those deals. Tell me it's not like that, is it? There's something going on here, and I'm right about it, right? Okay, yeah. There you go. Okay.