Image created using a star filter) Taylor Swift performs onstage during The Eras Tour at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on April 28, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia.
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10 Artists on Taylor Swift's Impact: 'The Reason I Ever Picked Up a Guitar'

"In every season of life...there’s a Taylor song that gets me through."

Seventeen years ago, 16-year-old Taylor Swift released her debut single "Tim McGraw,"  a ballad about a fleeting -- but no less devastating -- summer love. Swift's ode to late night slow dances launched a million mid-aughts mix CDs and, more importantly, announced Swift, who co-wrote the tune with Liz Rose, as a songwriter right out of the gate. That title -- songwriter -- is one that Swift has always seemed to cherish most and it's the reason she became an icon to millions of girls and women, which is to say it's the reason she became a superstar. Because no one but Taylor Swift can write a Taylor Swift song. No one is better at capturing a moment or a memory -- the color of a partner's eyes, incense on a vinyl shelf, the exact shade of the sky during a date at dusk, a scarf buried in a drawer -- than Swift.

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If her songs often feel like diary entries, it's because songwriting is her diary. Even her songwriting process -- down to the pens used for each entry -- is like journaling, as she explained at Nashville Songwriters Association International's 2022 Nashville Songwriter Awards, describing her three genres of lyrics as Quill Lyrics, Fountain Pen Lyrics and Glitter Gel Pen Lyrics. ("If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson's great grandmother while sewing a lace curtain," Swift said, "that's me writing in the Quill genre.")

Taylor Swift performs onstage during night one of Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour at Nissan Stadium on May 05, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Four years after the release of "Tim McGraw," Swift released her third album, Speak Now, which saw her on the verge of adulthood. Her first completely self-written album, the songs were penned when Swift was between 18 and 20 and capture the strange time between high school and whatever comes next.

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EAST RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY - MAY 27: EDITORIAL USE ONLY Taylor Swift performs onstage during "Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour" at MetLife Stadium on May 27, 2023 in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

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Over a decade since the release of Speak Now, Swift has since embarked on a quest to own all of her music by re-recording all of the albums released when she was signed to Big Machine, including Speak Now, which will be re-released as Speak Now (Taylor's Version) (out July 7, 2023).

In honor of the latest re-release, Wide Open Country asked 10 artists, including Swift co-writer Lori McKenna, ACM New Female Artist of the Year nominee Megan Moroney, CMT Next Women of Country class of 2023 member Carter Faith and more, to share what makes Swift a once-in-a-generation artist.

 

READ MORE:  These Taylor Swift Country Songs Prove She's an Elite Songwriter