Taylor Swift takes the cover of the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly.On Speak Now: It was an emotional roller coaster leading up to releasing that record. I tend to live somewhere between hope and fear. I’ve never wavered so much in my life than I did in the weeks leading up to the record release.
On selling over one million records: I got a call, and it was a bunch of people from management and my mom and my dad on the phone. I remember Scott Borchetta, my record-label president, saying, “Congratulations. I guess you’re my million-dollar baby.” I made him say it, like, four times because I couldn’t actually believe it. First I was screaming, and then I was really silent, and then I was really emotional, and then I was dancing. I still can’t wrap my mind around it.
On criticism: Words are everything to me. Words can build me up and make me feel so good. And on the flip side, words can absolutely demolish me. I am nowhere close to being bulletproof when it comes to criticism. Feeling everything is part of being a songwriter. If I block out those feelings of pain and rejection, then I don’t know what I would write about. I’d rather feel pain when I read something terrible about me than feel nothing.