Taylor Swift Honors Country Roots in Icon Sessions Interview

Views 6 Published by August 25, 2026

The pop superstar reflected on her Nashville origins and early influences in a career-spanning conversation with Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. for the Icon Sessions series.

Taylor Swift expressed growing appreciation for her country music roots in an interview with Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. for the institution’s Icon Sessions series.

“I love my country roots more and more the further along this path I get and I want to honor them more and more,” Swift said. “I feel more tied to them, more loyal to them … The people that shaped who I am as an artist and as a writer, that all happened in Nashville.”

Swift credited Faith Hill’s discovery at the Bluebird Cafe as inspiration for her own career goals. “I had heard that Faith Hill got discovered at the Bluebird Cafe,” she recalled. “I started learning about the Bluebird Cafe, made it a personal life goal to get to perform there.”

The conversation focused on Swift’s songwriting over two decades, with particular attention to her self-titled debut album and first single “Tim McGraw.” Swift noted the song contained “hints at everything that was gonna happen in the next 20 years.”

Earlier in 2026, Swift released “I Knew It, I Knew You,” her first country song in years, which became historic as the first song by a woman to receive airplay from every country radio station reporting to Mediabase in its first week. During the Icon Sessions performance at the Grammy Museum, Swift performed a medley of “I Knew It, I Knew You,” “August,” and “All Too Well” on the same piano used during her Eras Tour surprise song sets, with memory as the connecting theme.