Taylor Swift on keeping her new album a secret, why she would make a great spy and how her circle of friends don’t snitch
The world’s biggest popstar, Taylor Swift, joins Scott Mills on Radio 2’s Breakfast Show on Monday (October 6th) to chat about her new 12th studio album The Life of a Showgirl.
Taylor Swift on keeping her new album a secret and her phenomenal close circle of friends who don’t snitch
Scott: So you were doing this while you were on the tour, so you'd do a three hour live show, then you'd pop to Sweden and record an album. And nobody blabbed. It stayed secret.
How big is the circle of trust? How do you manage to keep that secret?
Taylor: My friends don't rat. They do not rat.
Scott: Clearly.
Taylor: And you can tell by the amount of stories about me that are out there that are absolutely not true, because all of my friends had heard the music a year ago. They know about my life. They know what's going on. They do not snitch. It is phenomenal. I've got a really good circle of friends. It takes a while to get there.
Scott: You have chosen your friends well.
Taylor: Well, thank you! I feel so proud about that. But yeah, my friends know everything just like anybody's friends know everything. And they, the thing is that they just don't.
Scott: So the label knew and your friends knew?
Taylor: The label didn't know at all. Until we had, until the record was done and we had made and we'd shot all of the art, we'd done everything, we do keep that close to the vest because, you know, I think it's fun to surprise them, honestly, it's really fun.
Scott: Yeah, I bet it is.
Taylor: We do a lot of things in-house, my team, so I think it's easier for them when the label can really just focus on what they have to do in terms of distribution, we have an amazing team that do that, so, yeah.
Scott: What's the most extreme thing you've had to do to keep something secret, are there disguises? There must be secret code names.
Taylor: Oh, we do all of it, everything. All of that. And if I tell you what it is, then it's like it's easier for people to figure it out. But I just, you know, I really want my music to be a surprise for my fans. And I really want to figure out how to do those surprises in ways that are clever and fun for them and feel like entertainment and also if you don't need Easter eggs then you can disregard that and that doesn't need to happen. You don't need to do math if you don't want to but if you want a little extra layer of entertainment like I like to be able to do that and that's why we're so shrouded in secrecy.
Scott: You love doing it and the fans love it trying to work it all out.
Taylor: Yeah they found out a really fun one the other day which is that if you line up all of the titles of the songs on the album, in the centre, it makes the shape of The Eras Tour stage.
Scott: I love it.
Taylor: And it's, I was so pleased when they found that out. I was like, yes.
Scott: So that was one.
Taylor: Yeah.
Scott: Oh my God, they're everywhere.
Taylor: They are everywhere. There are some weird ones that have absolutely no bearing in reality.
Taylor Swift on her ‘phenomenal’ Welsh fans and how she will never forget that gig in Cardiff
Scott: Lots of people in Cardiff, because it was a solo show, thought there were lots of little clues in - Yeah, because you wore the orange dress. Was that a clue?
Taylor: There were a lot of orange clues throughout. Yeah, for sure.
Scott: All the Welsh people are like, hmm, okay.
Taylor: They were an amazing crowd.
Scott: You said it was one for the books, you see. And anything you say will just be like taken and like they're trying to work out.
Taylor: My God. They were phenomenal. That was, I'll never forget what that crowd was like.
Scott: Why, why so?
Taylor: I don't know, they were just lit. They were absolutely…
Scott: on a Tuesday night.
Taylor: They were just exactly. I never expected that. I was just like, you guys are on another level, I gotta go back.
Scott: The constant writing notes is, well, we have that in common. I know that you use your notes app to write song lyrics and ideas all the time. Now, I do that for interview questions and ideas for the show.
Taylor: That's awesome.
Taylor Swift on why she would make a great spy
Scott: And since I found out that we were gonna have this chat, I've been writing down questions at all sorts of weird times. Because they're like, you're gonna interview Taylor Swift I was like, okay, and my brain has been constantly on it. So some of these may be odd because some of them will be in the middle of the night, but bear with. Question from my notes app. Gloria Estefan was once asked by the CIA to become a spy. Have you ever been asked because you'd be a great spy. Think about all the secrets you have to keep.
Taylor: Yeah, but that's classified, unfortunately.
Scott: Yeah, okay, you are good. Which part of being a spy would you be best at?
Taylor: Oh God, I think the entering and exiting buildings without being seen.
Scott: You are good at that.
Taylor: Just put me in a garbage can and roll me. I don't care honestly no…I can fit in like a purse.
Scott: So you're not precious about how you travel?
Taylor: No. Look here's the thing sometimes. I just can't deal with it. Yeah, and in those times I won't deal with it. So yeah, I'm just digging tunnels under every building I go into.
Sott: It's quite incredible.
Taylor: Thank you. Yeah. Airlifting in through the skylight.
Taylor Swift on warning friends and the Elizabeth Taylor estate about being mentioned in her music
Scott: Next note, do you need to warn people when you mention them in songs?
Taylor: If they're real people, yeah. Yeah, if they're real people. And like if it's like Elizabeth Taylor, we go to their family and her estate and let them know and they were lovely about it.
Scott: Did you have to put any calls in before this album?
Taylor: Yeah, there's, I mean, one of my best friends from high school, my best friend from high school, but one of my best friends in my whole world, Abigail, we met when we were 14 years old, and there's a line in the song ‘Ruin the Friendship’ that says Abigail called me with the bad news. And so I had to like, you know, tell her, 'cause she's been mentioned in songs before, there's a song called ‘Fifteen’ and she's mentioned in it, but I obviously want to tell her.
Scott: Yeah, because with an enormous fan base, comes great responsibility like did you have to tell the ‘Black Dog Pub’ that they might be getting a few calls?
Taylor: I mean…I did not and still nobody knows what I'm even talking about on that song. They think they know but they have no idea.
Scott: But you know but they don't know.
Taylor: Yeah and that's the one thing.
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