Taylor Swift announced that her new album, Speak Now, will be released Oct. 25. She made the announcement during a web chat in Nashville on July 20. The first single and video is called “Mine,” a song that is about “my tendency to run from love,” she said during the chat. She shot the video in Maine and told viewers that she’d like to retire there. She also said she wrote all of the songs by herself. More than 45,000 people were tuned into the early part of the webcast, which was available through her website, her Facebook and MySpace pages and UStream.tv.
In fielding questions from fans, Swift said the single will be released in mid August and that the album will probably feature 14 tracks, including “Sparks Fly,” a song she’s been performing in concert during her Fearless tour.
Here are some of the highlights from her comments during the webcast:
Her Activities This Summer: My summer has been 99 percent focused on the new record, and then, like, 1 percent focused on the fact that I actually just moved into my first place. I’m officially moved in. I’m so excited. As you know, I’ve been constantly talking about how I’ve been antique shopping and nonstop planning and doing construction on this place that is finally finished. It’s been really awesome — just figuring out what it’s like to be on your own and cooking. I’m having such a blast with it.
Selecting Title for New Album: That pertains to the album as a concept and as an entire theme of the record — more than I can even tell you. I’ve been working on it for two years. Ever since we put out Fearless, I’ve been writing for this record and conceptualizing it and putting it together in my head as to what I wanted it to be. I like to take a lot of time in between albums to work up the next one and to see what it is. …
For me, I write everything that I live, so you’ve got to give yourself a little bit of time to live a lot of things so you can write about a lot of things. My only option is to write about what I’ve been through and what I’ve lived. Thankfully, in the past two years, I’ve experienced a lot of things I’ve been dying to write about and a lot of things I wanted to say, in the moment, that I didn’t. You know, in life, you have a lot of situations that pop up, and people that come into your life. Sometimes you don’t get to tell them what you wish you’d told them. This album is my opportunity to do that. Track by track, each song is a different confession to a different person.
“Mine,” the Album’s First Single: It’s a song that is about … my tendency to run from love. It’s been sort of a recent tendency. I think it’s because that, for me, every really direct example of love that I’ve had in front of me has ended in goodbye, has ended in breakups. I think I’ve developed this pattern of sort of running away when it comes time to fall in love and to stay in a relationship. The song is sort of about finding the exception to that and finding someone who would make you believe in love and realize that it could work out. I’m never, ever going to go past hoping that love can work out. I’m always going to be very hopeful and blindly optimistic when it comes to love.
The Video for “Mine”: We shot the video in Portland, Maine, which was the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. It was gorgeous. I loved it. I absolutely fell in love with it. … I went there and got to spend two or three days just falling in love with it. When I am old and I have silver hair … I want to live in Maine. I want to have a house and make necklaces or something — and have a lot of cats. It’s a whole fantasy for me.
No Co-Writers on Speak Now: I actually wrote all the songs by myself for this record. I didn’t have any co-writers. And it didn’t really happen on purpose. It just happened to happen that way. Like, I’d get my best ideas at 3 a.m. in Arkansas. And I wouldn’t have a co-writer around, so I would just finish it. Then that would happen again in New York, and then that would happen again in Boston and then that would happen again in Nashville. It just so happened that the songs that made the cut for the album were the ones I wrote by myself. So wish me luck.
Courtesy of CMT.com.
