December 22 started out as a typical day during break for me and thousands of other Taylor Swift and Hunger Game fans, but once Taylor Swift started tweeting about an upcoming surprise she had for her fans, I knew it wasn't going to be another normal day. She then tweeted "And this is it, the big surprise... Go get it! #The HungerGames" With a link to a picture of the "Safe and Sound" cover. Here's Taylor's tweets hinting to her fans about the surprise.
Safe and Sound is a song on the Hunger Games, a upcoming movie, soundtrack sung by Taylor and featuring the Civil Wars. This news from Taylor on twitter started spreading and soon "Safe and Sound" was trending and became the top trending topic on twitter in the U.S. and the second most trending topic on twitter in the world. Soon enough, later that day, "Safe and Sound" became the number one song on iTunes, which Taylor later tweeted thanking her fans for doing. I was at a friend's house when i checked twitter and heard the news that Taylor had a new song out. The first thing I did when I got home was I went on iTunes and bought the song. I then listened to the song and was so shocked by what I heard. "Safe and Sound" is a completely new sound from anything I've heard Taylor do before. The song is an acoustic ballad and it is so beautiful to hear. The blend of her voice and the Civil Wars is just breathtaking. I then listened to it on repeat in my room from then on. I think the lyrics are amazing like every other song Taylor has written. The composers of the song are Taylor Swift, Joy Williams, John Paul White, and T Bone Burnett. The chorus is, "Just close your eyes, the sun is going down. You'll be all right, no one can hurt you now. Come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound." My favorite song lyric though is, "Don't you dare look out your window darling everything's on fire. The war outside our door keeps raging on. Hold on to this lullaby, even when the music's gone." The full lyrics to the song can be found here. The music just moves me, you can listen to it by playing the video below. I really recommend you go and buy it on iTunes.
It's December 13 and guess what that means?!?! It's Taylor Swift's birthday!! She's turning 22 today and in honor of her and her many, many achievements, I'm dedicating this post to her. It's no wonder her lucky number is 13 considering her birthday is on the 13th. Most people would take that as a bad luck sign, but not her, she seems to be getting all the luck these days with her amazing album, Speak Now, which has been out for over a year now, her unbelievable Speak Now World Tour, becoming a CoverGirl, and her amazing achievements and awards she's received recently.
Taylor Swift's amazing career all started when she was just 16 and released her first album Taylor Swift which is over 5 times platinum in the U.S.. Her career than really started going strong when she released her second album Fearless which is over 6 times platinum in the U.S. She than won four Grammys in 2009 including the biggest Grammy of then night, Album of the Year. By the time she was getting ready to release her third album, Speak Now, I had a countdown until October 25, 2010 when it was being released. I actually stayed up until midnight waiting to download it on iTunes. Speak Now sold over 1 million albums in the first week which is more than any other album has sold during it's first week since 2005 and is now listed in the 2012 Guinness Book of World Records for Speak Now being the fastest selling digital album by a female artist! She is named "Entertainer of the Year" by Entertainment Weekly, "Women of the Year" by Billboard magazine, Academy of Country Music award's Entertainer of the Year, American Music Award's Artist of the Year, Country Music Association award's Entertainer of the Year, Teen Choice Award's Ultimate Choice. That's just a few of the top honors Taylor has gotten or won in 2011, not including any achievements or awards from previous years for Fearless,Taylor Swift, or herself in general. Click here for a full list of achievements and awards Taylor has been nominated for or won throughout her career.
by me
So as you can see, Taylor has accomplished so much in her lifetime already and all before the age of 22. I think that's amazing! She's such a role model for me and she truly is my idol. She makes it so easy to relate to her through not only her songs, but her personality. I think she's such a sweet, funny person who truly loves her family, friends, and fans. She makes such a point to pay attention and thank her fans whenever she can. While some other artist might get annoyed with obsessive fans and try to disguise themselves when they go out somewhere, Taylor makes a point to walk up to those fans and give them a hug. Taylor makes video blogs for her fans to watch. Here's one of the many video blogs she's made.
You can find more of her video blogs here, on her official website. In both the Fearless and Speak Now World Tours, Taylor made sure she got to thanks fans for coming and supporting her by going out into the audiences and walk through the aisle hugging people, kissing them on the check, and saying "Hey! Thanks so much for coming!". I know she genuinely is thankful and appreciative of her fan's dedication to her. She even started a challenge between two adoring fans, Micheal Wekall and Ryan Leander, who started a website called "A Hug From Taylor Swift" with the goal of getting a hug from Taylor. Taylor saw their videos and responded to it with a video of her own, giving the guys a challenge to complete, walk an old lady across the street (find it here). Micheal and Ryan responded to the challenge, completing it (find it here), and then was given a second challenge (find it here), find the most create ways to use the number 13. They completed this challenge (find it here) and then Taylor finally gave them their third, and final challenge (find it here), get a group of people together to have the biggest karaoke of the song "You Belong with Me". Taylor then showed up there, at Micheal and Ryan's college, Auburn University, to give Micheal and Ryan a hug and give a little performance to the people who showed up for karaoke (find it here). This is just one example of Taylor's thoughtfulness to her fans.
So to wrap this post up, I'd like to say Happy Birthday Taylor! Congratulations on all your success so far and I hope/know there will be so much more success to come.
