Country singer Taylor Swift refuses to grow up too fast

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By Beverly Keel - The Tennessean via GNS

Although a tour with Brad Paisley forced Taylor Swift to skip her prom this spring, the high school junior is the belle of her own ball as she makes appearances across the country and in Canada in the coming months.

The 5-foot-11-inch blond stunner was nominated as top new female vocalist for the Academy of Country Music Awards earlier this month, though she lost to Miranda Lambert of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” fame.

Her self-titled debut album has been certified gold, and she recently nabbed a fan-voted 2007 Country Music Television Music Award for breakthrough video of the year for “Tim McGraw,” her Top 5 debut single and ode to young lost love that she penned. (The Hendersonville, Tenn., resident wrote or co-wrote every song on her album.) Before embarking on the current tour with Paisley, she opened for George Strait and Rascal Flatts.

“Winning the CMT award was probably the most exciting night of my life to date,” Swift says. “I can’t explain the feeling. I had never been nominated for anything before. I had won nothing before, literally nothing.

“To have my name called, I didn’t know what that was like. I didn’t think I was going to get it. When my name was called, I just ran up to the stage at, like, 100 miles an hour.”

But she thought the CMT win wouldn’t give her an edge over fellow ACM top new female vocalist nominees Lambert and former “American Idol” contestant Kellie Pickler, both of whom she readily praises.

“They are very different,” she says of the awards. “CMT are fan-voted and the ACMS are your peers. I have never been someone who is presumptuous about anything.”

Still a normal girl

Swift’s Hummer-driving mother dropped her leggy daughter off at a pizza place in Nashville, Tenn., on a recent afternoon.

Swift looks like she just wrapped a cover shoot of Seventeen. Yet she appears to remain oblivious to the power of her looks or her growing fame as she hungrily downs a personal-sized pizza and excitedly reveals details of her ACM dress: a pink corseted outfit custom-made by Sandy Spika.

Despite her red-carpet strolls and national television appearances, Swift contends she’s still a normal girl. She is home-schooled and completes many of her assignments on the bus.

“I’ll graduate by the time my regular class graduates,” she says. “I could blow through it and graduate in a couple of months, but for me, I am not in a hurry. I don’t hate it that much.”

Swift relishes every moment of being 17, a feeling evident in her lyrics, image, dress and videos.

Unlike some pop stars, Swift sticks to songs that convey teenage innocence, such as an unrequited crush in “Teardrops on My Guitar.” She doesn’t wear revealing clothes — she’s almost always seen in a flowing feminine dress and cowboy boots — or look like she’s heading to (or from) a bar.

“I will be the first one to stand up and say, ‘I am 17,’ ” she says. “This is what I have to bring to the table. I have never been in a hurry to be 25.

“One day, I’ll look back on being 17 and wish I had lived a little more as 17. Maybe I am wrong, but I don’t feel it is uncool to be 17 in the business world. Not many people treat me like I am 17. They give me the ability to have creative freedom and power to put the music out there. That’s why I am not self-conscious about my age.”

Peers are pleased

Her coming-of-age music has obviously struck a nerve with young listeners. Her music has been streamed more than 14 million times on MySpace, and “Tim McGraw” has sold more than 500,000 digital downloads.

Early on, Swift recognized the power of MySpace through her friends’ use. Since she didn’t have a personal page, she established a MySpace music page and had fans listening to her music before a single was selected.

“I nurtured it and really paid attention to it, like it was something important and not just a marketing tool,” she says.

She personally wrote her bio in first-person instead of running the standard third-person, which she thought would make her seem cold and impersonal.

“I wrote it about who I am as a person,” Swift says. “I have never been afraid to let people in to see that part of me, that I actually am a human being.

“It’s cool because my fans are all ages. Of course, there are a lot of them that are my age. That is so flattering to me because I know how picky I am about music and how picky my friends are about music. They are ruthless. But if they like something, they are so passionate and loyal. That is why I am so happy to have fans that are my age.”

Moms love her, too

It’s a good bet that those fans’ mothers are thrilled that their daughters are fans of Swift, an impressively well spoken and intelligent artist who discusses responsibility and morals as easily as she tackles fashion and fame.

It’s not that Swift isn’t tempted by the same choices that face other teenage girls, but that she realizes the ramifications of such indulgences. After all, this is a teenage girl who is paid to play in bars where she’s surrounded by alcohol-guzzling adults.

“As long as I am playing music, I am fine,” she says. “I don’t go into bars if I am not playing music. That isn’t my place right now in my life.

“I’ve been very lucky that people treated me so well and realized my morals and what I will and won’t do. I have a really good core group of people around me that enforce that.”

When faced with a major decision, such as whether to drink or smoke or choose an outfit for a major event, she envisions a 6-year-old girl sitting in the front row of one of her concerts and what the girl would think if she saw Swift engaging in such behavior.

“I think about her mother. Would her mother let her listen to my music if she saw me do this?” Swift asks. “That is the easiest way to make decisions for me because it completely clears up any clouds that my judgment might have. I am not going to let those people down.

“I have asked for this; I wanted it. Yes, there is pressure sometimes, but I have wanted this. I am going to respect people who have trusted me with their kids.”