Taylor Swift revealed the three categories of her songwriting process while accepting yet another award
The Midnights artist broke down her three categories of lyrics while being honored as NSAI's Songwriter-Artist of the Decade
It would be nigh impossible to recreate Taylor Swift’s success, but one can at least learn something from one of the greatest songwriters of her generation. Swift has spoken frequently about her process in the past, but on Tuesday—while accepting the Songwriter-Artist of the Decade (between 2010 and 2019) award from Nashville Songwriters Association International—she revealed a part of her process that had never been shared before.
The Grammy winner hadn’t spoken publicly about it “because, well, it’s dorky,” she admitted to the crowd at NSAI’s 2022 Nashville Songwriter Awards (per The Hollywood Reporter). She went on to explain her personal three genres of lyrics, “affectionately titled Quill Lyrics, Fountain Pen Lyrics, and Glitter Gel Pen Lyrics.” This is a figurative designation based on what writing tool she feels suits the lyrics best (“I don’t actually have a quill. Anymore. I broke it once when I was mad.”).
“I categorize certain songs of mine in the ‘Quill’ style if the words and phrasings are antiquated, if I was inspired to write it after reading Charlotte Brontë or after watching a movie where everyone is wearing poet shirts and corsets,” Swift said. “If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great grandmother while sewing a lace curtain, that’s me writing in the Quill genre.” Her example for Quill lyrics was the evermore track “ivy.”
Swift considers “most” of her lyrics to be “Fountain Pen style,” citing the vaunted “All Too Well” as an example of the category. “Fountain pen style means a modern storyline or references, with a poetic twist. Taking a common phrase and flipping its meaning. Trying to paint a vivid picture of a situation, down to the chipped paint on the door frame and the incense dust on the vinyl shelf,” she said. “Placing yourself and whoever is listening right there in the room where it all happened. The love, the loss, everything. The songs I categorize in this style sound like confessions scribbled and sealed in an envelope, but too brutally honest to ever send.”
Meanwhile, “Glitter Gel Pen” songs are “Frivolous, carefree, bouncy, syncopated perfectly to the beat,” like the legally disputed “Shake It Off.” Swift shared, “Glitter Gel Pen lyrics don’t care if you don’t take them seriously because they don’t take themselves seriously. Glitter Gel Pen lyrics are the drunk girl at the party who tells you that you look like an Angel in the bathroom. It’s what we need every once in a while in these fraught times in which we live.”
The lyricist waxed rhapsodic about the power of songwriting in her speech, praising collaborators and reflecting on her impressive catalog (which she has been brushing off for her re-recording project). “[A] song can defy logic or time. A good song transports you to your truest feelings and translates those feelings for you. A good song stays with you even when people or feelings don’t,” she said. “Writing songs is a calling and getting to call it your career makes you very lucky. You have to be grateful every day for it, and all the people who thought your words might be worth listening to. This town is the school that taught me that.”
You can read the full text of Swift’s speech—or simply scan it for Easter eggs concerning her upcoming album Midnights—over at The Hollywood Reporter.