Hi, Taylor

My friend Leah and I at a Taylor Swift Tribute Show.

I’m very excited to share this surprise post for On The Record!

On June 11, 2026, Taylor Swift was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. The last two paragraphs of her speech brought me to tears, because her words described exactly what I had written in a letter to her nearly two years ago. I’ve never shared that letter with anyone, feeling weirdly superstitious that if I did, the chances of her seeing it one day may be ruined. But after her speech echoed my thoughts and feelings so deeply, I took it as a sign. Now was the perfect time to share this piece of writing so close to my heart, dedicated to a musician I admire so deeply.  As a preface to my letter below, here is the excerpt from Swift’s speech:

“As writers, we can only hope to meet people where they are in their lives, but you can’t ever orchestrate or force the encounter. You just have to hope that some, in some exquisite happenstance, you bump into them on the same path at the same time. But somehow amidst the noise of life, a line we wrote or a melody that we crafted cuts through, and they hear it, they feel something, they get chills or feel lighter, or think of someone they love. Our goal is to elicit that glint of recognition in another human being, because something that felt good and true to us feels good and true to them at the same time, and in that moment when someone blurts out, “I love this song,” it was easy.

The fans came along, and they wanted to hear my stories, my prose, my hooks, my heartache, and nothing, nothing delights and surprises me more than the fact that 20 years after my first song came out, they still want to read the next chapter. Nothing makes me happier than when someone tells me that they used to listen to my music with their parent, and now decades later, they listen to it with their own child. Or that they listen to it with their best friend, or when a couple tells me that “Love Story” is their song, or somebody does a cute little dance to “The Fate of Ophelia,” or I hear people in different countries singing “Opalite” in their own accents, or someone tells me that the song “Enchanted” gets their baby to stop crying. I’m humbled by the ways that fans have immortalized my songs in their own individual ways, allowing them to be the underscore of some of their real-life expeditions on this earth, the magnificent moments, as important to me as the seemingly mundane.”

My letter to Taylor, written December 12, 2024:

Hi, Taylor:

My name is Christina Scott; I’m a 36-year-old woman from Coaldale, Alberta, Canada. I’m sending you this message hoping to make a connection with you as a long-time fan of your music. I know it’s an incredibly long shot, but as they say, you miss 100 percent of the shots you never take. So, here goes:

I have been enjoying your music since 2009; at the time, I was a 21-year-old college student pursuing print journalism. One day, my friend Leah burst into my dorm room and excitedly declared: “My roommate got me into Taylor Swift – have you heard her awesome song, “You Belong With Me?” I shook my head and she immediately searched YouTube for the music video. I watched and listened to what followed with wide-eyed amazement; not only did the song have a great beat and melody, but the lyrics painted a story so real, so raw, and in my world, so unfortunately common. You Belong With Me had captured every single experience I had with my high school crushes to a tee. I felt permanently stuck in the “friend zone”, and never had a song so perfectly encapsulate everything I felt and wished I had said at the time.

I immediately went out and bought the Fearless CD, and I listened to it on repeat for weeks. Here was someone my age, articulating my feelings and experiences with insane precision, wrapping it up in melodies and beats that were catchy as hell. You were half a world away, and yet, your music somehow made me feel like I’d known you my whole life.

 It was clear that your ability to create meaningful, relatable songs with sick beats and beautiful melodies was a rare and wonderful talent that you used to the fullest, and that I was now one of many fans who would get a front row seat to watch your creativity bloom, grow and thrive in the coming years.

Ever since childhood, I have had a deep connection and love for music; from my earliest experience hearing All That She Wants by Ace Of Base on an old boom box in the basement of my family home to my latest experience listening to a string quartet pay tribute to your work in a church filled with candles, music is a permanent facet in my life, creating the soundtrack to my most important moments and memories. I do not have a shred of musical talent (aside from the “scream into your hairbrush” kind), yet it consumes me. I can listen to music for hours, getting lost in the myriads of emotions it evokes in me. I once wrote an article on my personal blog, On The Record detailing the power of music, and while trying to put something so meaningful into words was a challenge, I think this excerpt captures it:

“That’s the true power of music. It can lift you up, while simultaneously bringing you to your knees, giving your deepest emotions nowhere to hide. What a heartbreakingly beautiful thing.”

I can say with absolute pleasure that your music has done that for me time and time again:

The way I’m drawn back to the emotional turmoil of my teenage years every time I hear “You’ll find time can heal most anything, and you just might find who you’re gonna be – I didn’t know who I was supposed to be at 15.”

The way I’m reminded of that one person in my life who was determined to make me miserable as a young adult when I hear thank you aiMee and Mean.

The way I sent Clara Bow to my niece on the day of her high school graduation because these words so perfectly described her and her next chapter:

“Beauty is a beast that roars, down on all fours, demanding more. Only when your girlish glow flickers just so do they let you know: this town is fake but you're the real thing, breath of fresh air through smoke rings; take the glory, give everything, the future's bright, dazzling."

The way I shared these words from The Prophecy with my grieving friend after the untimely death of her son:

“And I sound like an infant, feeling like the very last drops of an ink pen

A greater woman stays cool, But I howl like a wolf at the moon                                    Please I've been on my knees, change the prophecy

Let it once be me who do I have to speak to

About if they can redo the prophecy?”

The way the bridge in Is It Over Now reminds me of myself at 16, desperately in love with my good friend, willing to do anything to get him to see me through a different lens:

“I think about jumping off of very tall somethings just to see you come running and say the one thing I’ve been wanting, but no.”

The way these words from You Are In Love bring me to tears every single time, because it is quite simply the most beautiful song I have ever heard:

“You kiss on sidewalks, You fight and you talk

One night he wakes, Strange look on his face

Pauses, then says, You're my best friend

And you knew what it was, He is in love

You can hear it in the silence, silence,

You can feel it on the way home, way home,

You can see it with the lights out, lights out

You are in love, true love”

The way you perfectly captured my tendency to favour getting lost in daydreams instead of the nuances of real life in I Hate It Here:

“I'm lonely but I'm good, I'm bitter but I swear I'm fine

I'll save all my romanticism for my inner life and I'll get lost on purpose

This place made me feel worthless

Lucid dreams like electricity, the current flies through me, and in my fantasies I rise above it, And way up there, I actually love it”

The way the heartbreak described in All Too Well is so real and so visceral that it explodes out of my headphones and punches me in the gut, leaving me breathless and in awe all at once.

I could go on, because, quite frankly, the depth and ingenuity of your lyricism is nothing short of magical. Last spring, I underwent major abdominal surgery, and as I lay in my hospital bed late at night with my headphones on, The Tortured Poets Department Anthology absolutely blew me away. I have never known an artist so dedicated to her craft through such magnificent storytelling. That storytelling is a wonderful gift you have shared with me and the rest of the world, as we find a common thread or shared feeling in those stories and make them our own.

Moreover, your ability to pair these wonderful lyrics with great beats and melodies makes your music such a joy to listen to. 1989 remains my favourite album of yours; when I first heard it in the fall of 2014, I knew immediately that it would join the exclusive club of my favourite albums where I felt that every song on it could be a hit single. I was 26 when it came out, and it really encapsulated that feeling of being in my 20s and the world just being a big open book for me to explore and leave my mark on.

But more than that, your Glitter Gel Pen songs hit me on a level I wasn’t expecting: so much of my love for music is wrapped up in how it makes me feel. I can’t tell you the sheer joy that comes over me when I’m getting ready for work in the morning and …Ready For It? Welcome To New York, Shake It Off, Out Of The Woods, Style, Bejeweled, You Need To Calm Down, Karma, Say Don’t Go, I Can Do It With A Broken Heart and many more are blaring through my Bluetooth speaker. All I want to do in these moments is dance with reckless abandon, even though that is impossible for me as a full-time wheelchair user with cerebral palsy. But, if it was possible, YOUR MUSIC would be the first soundtrack to my likely awkward and uncoordinated moves. For now, I am happy to settle for dancing on the inside, knowing that it won’t be long before your creativity is sparked again, and I can add new and exciting music to the constant dance party raging in my head.

Now that I’ve rambled on for what must seem like an insanely long read, you’re probably wondering: what is the point here? Where is this going? Will you even see this? I have no idea. But I have nothing to lose, so I just wanted to say THANK YOU.

WHAT YOU ARE DOING MATTERS. THE MUSIC YOU ARE MAKING MATTERS, TO ME AND SO MANY OTHERS. YOU SHOULD BE INCREDIBLY PROUD OF YOURSELF AND THE WONDERFUL LEGACY YOU ARE LEAVING.

One of the reasons I decided to pursue journalism was because for a long time, it was my dream to write for Rolling Stone interviewing the artists I admired. Life got in the way, as it tends to do, and I never made that milestone. Circumstances forced me to leave the field long ago, but I still like to watch, listen to, and read artists being interviewed. Of your interviews that I have seen, you are often forced to answer questions about everything BUT your music and songwriting, and that drives me nuts. Because as I have tried to demonstrate in this letter, that is what matters most. I would love to meet you someday and ask you all my dorky music questions, like:

As a musician, how do you hear other people’s music? Is it different than the average listener because you have knowledge of how music is composed and written?

How do you consistently come up with new and unique melodies with which to accompany your lyrics? Do you HAVE to know how to play an instrument to be able to come up with those melodies?

You began in country music, and yet, it seems that you have always enjoyed a range of genres. Why did you choose country to start with?

What do you get out of collaborating on songs with others that you don’t get out of writing on your own?

To be clear, if this ever happened (I know there’s likely no chance in hell), I would be asking as a fan, not a journalist. I would not publish or share it in any way. Really, I would just like a chance to meet someone I admire deeply and say thank you face-to-face. As someone in your position, I fully understand if you have zero trust in this complete stranger who has just rambled on for exactly 1989 words (not planned, but a cool coincidence!) I also understand that there are constant pressures and demands on your time. At the end of the day, even if all you do is read this, that’s enough for me and I’ll be thrilled. The rest is just wishful thinking.

I never made it to The Eras Tour, but I did watch it twice in theatres: once with my friend Leah and once by myself. I also had the pleasure of seeing you in 2013 in Edmonton during the Red tour, and one thing is clear: you’re on a hell of a ride and I know you know where you’re going. Watching you execute your vision with such tenacity and focus has been a pleasure. Thanks for taking me and the rest of the world on the journey. Can’t wait to see the next stop.