ryan 🎧

✍🏼| Taylor recalling a memory that she revisits when the chaos in the life wants to take over: “One of the memories I revisit a lot on good days and bad because it just makes me feel cozy is that I used to write a lot in two favorite buildings. I had two favorite places that I loved to write the most. The first one being the Sony Fire Hall because you could hear the other writers through the walls and I just kind of liked to pretend that I was in the Brill Building. And then my most favorite was a place called Jody Williams Music, an independent publishing company that was located in a little craftsman house. Let’s say the year is like 2005 in this memory. My mom would pick me up from Hendersonville High School, drive me downtown and drop me off and I’d stamper in the front of Jody Williams Music and I’d say “Hi” to Catherine who worked at the front and sometimes her boyfriend Eric would be there visiting. Things have gone great for them. They’ve got a couple kids, married like 20 years now. His full name is Eric Church, just for clarity. But then I’d run up the stairs and I would plop down on the couch in front of Liz Rose in this room that was painted red. And I’d be like, “Liz, this happened at school today. I’ve got a hook that I wanna like, you know, you got to write this thing.” And she’d get her notebook and we’d just write so fast. When we finished with the song, I kind of jog out the back of this house to the backyard where there was a garden shed. And in that garden shed was a one person studio where Jody Williams Music’s favorite demo producer, Nathan Chapman, was making demos. I would run in and Nathan would play every single instrument on these demos and he interpreted my music so intuitively that later on I would fight for him to produce my entire first album. And it was our first album, both of us. And I am shocked and stunned to say that as of a couple days ago, that album is 20 years old. I’ve been very fortunate I’ve gotten to genre hop and travel the world and write with so many different people and in so many different ways. And the only reason that I’ve been able to have that kind of dexterity in my creative process is because of the fundamentals and the foundation that I learned here in Nashville. And I never forget that for a single second when I tell every single person I know about what we have here. And I’m so incredibly honored to be inducted into this sacred club, especially at this point in my life.”