Taylor Swift And Paris Hilton

January 28, 2008

Can you believe that some men think adorable Taylor Swift looks like Paris Hilton? Go figure.

What I can agree with is that Taylor Swift always looks great. But she’s not a red-carpet obsessed wannabe singer. She’s the real deal. Something Hilton will never be.

Swift says she prefers dresses and boots to pants. At 5-foot-11-inches in stocking feet, she’s easily over 6 feet tall in boots.

“I was always the tallest girl (in my class) after I had my growth spurt. There was a year I went from like 5 feet to 5-6 in six months.

“I wear skinny jeans, but never on stage. I’ve never worn pants or jeans on stage. For me it’s a comfort thing. I like the idea of jumping around the stage in a dress and boots. That’s my comfort level. I think my style is really girly but it’s ironic to pair it with boots. I love that.”

Of course, Taylor has a stylist to help her. “Sandi Spika, she literally does everything. She does my make-up, my hair, she makes my dresses. It’s remarkable how talented she is.”

Swift says she loves being a role model to younger girls, and loves to see them in the Meet and Greet lines, because it wasn’t that long ago she was one of those girls. One cause that’s important to Taylor is safe driving.

In early December, Swift judged the Holiday Holla competition at the Mall of the Americas in Minnesota in which teenagers wrote lyrics about driving issues set to familiar Christmas tunes.

Swift felt well-qualified for the assignment for All-State’s Keep the Drive campaign because she’s had a few accidents herself.

“I’m not a bad driver. I just don’t have a good driving record. Cars on the road like to hit my car. They like to rear-end me at stop lights. I don’t make a lot of driving mistakes, though,” she said.

In fact, after rear-ending her, one fan asked her to autograph a piece of her broken taillight. In one fender-bender a gang of teenagers who were text-messaging hit her.

“I definitely don’t text while I drive, and I don’t talk on the phone while I drive.” Swift notes that auto accidents are the No. 1 killer of kids her age.

Swift was a delightful interview. I literally could have talked to her all day. Here’s the text of the story I wrote that ran in the Accent section before she performed at the WKIS Chili Cook-Off this past Sunday:

Taylor Swift is lounging in her bedroom in her family’s home near Nashville. The room is a lot like any teenage girl’s bedroom, she says, except for the plaque on the wall that celebrates the double platinum success of her self-titled debut album.

Swift may be just 18, but she’s already got a big career. She was nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy in all genres, she won the CMA Horizon Award, and she set records with Our Song, a young-love song she wrote in ninth grade, now in its sixth week at No. 1 on Billboard’s country charts.

These days, super-busy Swift spends only two or three days out of each month at home. The rest of the time, she’s touring, performing on television, and doing endless interviews. But she’s definitely not complaining. After all, she’s been dreaming about this since she was 10.

I’ve been writing songs since I was 12 and every time I felt alone or sad or happy, or felt anything, I would write songs. All the other kids were starting to go to parties and drink, when we were like 13, and I was completely cut out of my group of friends because I didn’t want to do any of that. So basically all my time was spent with my guitar. It became my best friend,” she said by phone.

“I feel like I was fortunate to have a cause and to know that I could fit in if I wanted to compromise everything I believed in. It was my choice to not do that, so I felt kind of like being an outcast was on my terms. I feel it’s unfortunate that the teen social system works that way,” she says with a laugh, “but I’m happy with the way things turned out.”

Uh, yeah. While other high school graduates are looking forward to college, Swift is looking forward to releasing her second album and a hectic touring schedule. Still, she’s not the least bit self-centered. Swift’s strong sense of self, her practical outlook, and her optimism, all come from her parents, Andrea and Scott Swift, who have always supported her career.

“I have to give all the credit to my parents, because, even if I wanted to get a big head, they wouldn’t let me. I have a great balance because my dad tells me that everything I do is great, that every song I write is the best one, and my mom is the critical, logical one. The balance of those two gives me a really big dose of reality without ever feeling hopeless. My mom does it in a very tactful way. That’s what moms are supposed to do.”

Even though Swift’s songs boast a maturity beyond her years, Swift says, “I realize that I only know two percent of what I’m going to know in my entire life. I know absolutely nothing right now at 18.”

She’s not dating anyone special, she says. “I guess I could make time for dating if I wanted to, but my philosophy on dating is when I find the guy who fascinates me as much as what I do fascinates me, I’m gonna go for it. Someday in my life I will meet someone who knocks me on the floor, someone that just completely captivates me. I haven’t felt that. I just want to make sure I never settle for anything or anyone that doesn’t completely knock me over.

“I don’t know if I have ever felt the kind of love I hope to feel one day. I thought I was in love with my little ninth-grade boyfriend,” she laughs, “but I think there’s a lot of kinds of love.”

Swift showed her love for some kids last month. For her 18th birthday, her record label surprised her with a bubble-gum pink Chevy pickup. Before the month was out, Swift had donated it to Victory Junction Gang, a charity for terminally ill children.

“I gave my truck to charity because they need it more than I do. I gave it away because if there is something I believe in, I can’t sit still until I’ve done something about it, and it was Christmas time and I had been given so much it felt almost unnatural to take another thing.”

From-http://www.palmbeachpost.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/palmbeach/fontaine/entries/2008/01/28/taylor_swift_an.html