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Taylor Swift is sharing the surprising backstory for one of her earliest hits.
In a new profile interview for The New York Times Magazine's 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters, the "Fate of Ophelia" singer, 36, explained how her song "Love Story" came to be. She revealed that she penned the popular track, the lead single for her 2008 sophomore album Fearless, after being forbidden by her parents Andrea and Scott Swift from going on a date with a man too old for the then-17 year old, per People.
Swift also shared how that songwriting experience was the first time she cared less about how a song was perceived and and more about writing something she loved.
"I think the first time I felt I don't care if people hate this because I love it so much was when I wrote the song 'Love Story' when I was 17, sitting in my bedroom, made at my parents because they wouldn't let me go on a date with a guy who was too old so I shouldn't have been on a date with him anyway," she said, joking, "And this is why you need to discipline your kids because they might write songs that go [to] No. 1."
The exercise in focusing on the passion of her craft over the potential conversations and noise it could create has seemingly had an impact on subsequent projects, including her 2017 album Reputation.
"Oftentimes when I love [songs] to a certain degree, that tends to match up with people," she said. "And it could be that it doesn't match up with the way people feel 'til six years later."
The Life of a Showgirl musician continued, "I loved the Reputation album. I was like, 'You guys say what you want. I know what I did. I love it. Go with God. Sorry. You can come around if you want. It's OK if you don't.'"
Elsewhere in the interview, Swift touched on the "corners of [her] fanbase" who take dissecting her lyrics to "a really extreme place" by trying to determine who a song was written about.
"When it gets a little bit weird for me is when people act like it's like a paternity test," she said. "Like, 'This song's about that person.' Because I'm like, 'That dude didn't write the song, I did.' But that's part of it."