Where Is Taylor Swift From?
April 25, 2023 by Maria Pierides
Where is Taylor Swift from? Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13th, 1989 in Reading, Pennsylvania and grew up in the nearby Wyomissing area until the age of 14, when her family moved to a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee so she could fulfil her dream of becoming a country music artist.
Taylor Swift is currently making headlines for her break-up with fiancé Joe Alwyn, but it’s not the first time that people are talking about her love life, as she has quite the reputation for talking about her exes; or more accurately, writing and singing about them! Taylor has quite a few famous exes including Jonas Brothers singer, Joe Jonas, Twilight actor Taylor Lautner, “Waiting on the World to Change” musician John Mayer, DJ Calvin Harris, and Brokeback Mountain star Jake Gyllenhaal, among others. But it’s not her love life that we want to talk about today – it’s her hometown and some highlights from her incredible career that is showing no signs of slowing down!
Having sold over 200 million records globally, Taylor Swift is one of the best-selling musicians in history, and currently holds the record for the most streamed woman on Spotify. She is the proud winner of 12 Grammy Awards, including three Album of the Year awards, an Emmy Award, 40 American Music Awards, 29 Billboard Music Awards, three IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year awards, and 92 Guinness World Records, including the World Record for having the highest annual earnings ever for a female musician, most weeks at No.1 on the Billboard Artist 100 Chart, and Youngest Album of the Year winner at the Grammy Awards. She has also been named in Rolling Stone‘s 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time.
READ MORE: Did Joe Alwyn Cheat On Taylor Swift? Here’s Why Some Fans On TikTok Think So
Early LifeTaylor Swift was named after singer-songwriter James Taylor, and according to Taylor herself, was named with business in mind. “My mom thought it was cool that if you got a business card that said ‘Taylor’ you wouldn’t know if it was a guy or a girl,” she told Rolling Stone in 2009, adding that having an androgynous name might help reduce any potential gender discrimination. “She wanted me to be a business person in a business world,” she added. Taylor has Scottish and German heritage and her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was an opera singer, so we know where she gets her singing talent from!
Taylor has regularly spoken about how her grandmother influenced her music, and even paid tribute to her in the song “Marjorie” taken from her December 2020 album, Evermore. The sentimental lyrics include wise words from her grandmother, who passed away in 2003, including the advice: “Never be so kind you forget to be clever and never be so clever you forget to be kind.” But perhaps the biggest tribute to her grandmother is the fact that her backing vocals even appear in her song, with Taylor saying: “My mom found a bunch of her old records of her singing opera, and I sent them to Aaron Dessner and he added them to the song.” Aww!
Taylor Swift started taking vocal and acting lessons when she was just nine years old, but then decided to shift her focus toward country music after feeling inspired by country music icons such as Shania Twain and Faith Hill. When Taylor was 12 years old, a computer repairman named Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar and helped her with the first steps of becoming a songwriter, leading Taylor to write her very first song, “Lucky You.” Taylor has always had the magic touch with writing, as she won a national poetry contest when she was in the fourth grade with a poem called A Monster in my Closet.
In 2002, Taylor sang the National Anthem at a Philadelphia 76ers basketball game. Things started moving for Taylor’s career in 2003, as she modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch with the help of talent manager Dan Dymtrow and had an original song included on a promotional CD released by makeup brand Maybelline, which also gave her the opportunity to attend meetings with major record labels.
Taylor had a lot of support from her parents, who we bet could clearly see her true talent coming through, as her father was able to transfer his job to Nashville when she was 14, and the family relocated to a lakefront house in Hendersonville, Tennessee, where Taylor attended high school. Two years later, when her career started taking off and she needed more flexibility, she transferred to Aaron Academy, a private Christian school that offered home schooling, and she was able to graduate high school a year early! She told the Associated Press at the time: “I never expected that my senior year would go the way it has. There’s something really exciting about getting to live your dream and continue your education at the same time.”
Although Taylor and the family moved so she could pursue her dreams, her mom reportedly never put any pressure on her, telling Entertainment Weekly: “I never wanted to make that move about her ‘making it.’ Because what a horrible thing if it hadn’t happened, for her to carry that kind of guilt or pressure around.”
HometownTaylor Swift’s hometown is Wyomissing in West Reading, a borough in Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States. It reportedly has a vibrant main street and was home to the VF Outlet Village, one of the largest outlet malls in the United States, until it closed permanently in December 2020. The Pagoda is a special landmark and symbol of Reading and a great place to visit, and visitors can also enjoy a great day at the Reading Public Museum or enjoy the natural beauty the town has to offer at the Arboretum. The West Reading Craft Pretzel and Beer Fest will be taking place at the end of the month.