Taylor Swift Said 1 Part of Making Music Makes Her Feel Like a ‘Crazy Person’: ‘I Freak Out’
Taylor Swift has been making music for most of her life, and she said there’s one part of the album-making process that never fails to stress her out. While she is appreciative of her level of success, it comes with pitfalls. One of these is the risk of leaks before she releases her album. She said she gets very paranoid about them.
Taylor Swift said her fear of her music getting leaked aggravates her
When Swift records or films music videos, she takes every possible precaution to protect against someone listening in. She films in soundproof locations and blacks out windows.
“Don’t even get me started on wiretaps,” Swift told Rolling Stone. “It’s not a good thing for me to talk about socially. I freak out.”
She admitted that while she hardly lets anyone know when she’s recording or filming a music video, she still fears that someone might leak her songs. As she filmed the video for “Shake It Off,” she worried the janitor might record the song.
“The janitor,” she said. “The janitor who’s being paid by TMZ. This is gonna sound like I’m a crazy person – but we don’t even know. I have to stop myself from thinking about how many aspects of technology I don’t understand.”
She said she worried about possibilities she wasn’t sure existed.
“Like speakers,” she said. “Speakers put sound out . . . so can’t they take sound in? Or” – holding up her cell phone – “they can turn this on, right? I’m just saying. We don’t even know.”
Taylor Swift trusted her fans with her music
Despite Swift’s concerns about leaks, she decided to invite fans into her home to listen to 1989 before its release.
“I did this thing called the 1989 Secret Sessions a few months ago, way before the album came out. I had spent months picking fans on Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter — people who had been so supportive and had tried and tried to meet me, had been to five shows or however many events but had never met me before,” she told NPR. “And so I picked these people. And in every single one of my houses in the U.S. and my hotel room in London, I would invite 89 people over to my living room, play them the entire album, tell them the stories behind it.”
She asked her fans to keep an eye out for any leaks. When the album did leak shortly before its release, they pushed back against anyone sharing it.
“They didn’t spoil the secret for other fans. Two days before the album came out, it leaked online, and it was the first time I’ve ever had an album leak without it trending on Twitter — because my fans protected it,” Swift said. “Anytime they’d see an illegal post of it, they’d comment, ‘Why are you doing this? Why don’t you respect the value of art? Don’t do this. We don’t believe in this. This is illegal. This isn’t fair. This isn’t right.’ And it was wild seeing that happen.
She said she is aware that eyes are always on her
Swift has been famous since she was a teenager. In her years as a celebrity, she’s learned that eyes are almost always on her.
“There’s someone whose entire job it is to figure out things that I don’t want the world to see,” she said. “They look at your career, they look at what you prioritize, and they try to figure out what would be the most revealing or hurtful.”
She said she always has to be on guard.
“Like, I don’t take my clothes off in pictures or anything – I’m very private about that,” she said. “So it scares me how valuable it would be to get a video of me changing. It’s sad to have to look for cameras in dressing rooms and bathrooms. I don’t walk around naked with my windows open, because there’s a value on that.”
