Taylor Swift x Ryan Seacrest: The Full Interview

It's showtime baby! Taylor Swift joined Ryan Seacrest on-air on Tuesday, October 7th, to take us behind her new, record-shattering album The Life of a Showgirl. The "Elizabeth Taylor" songstress also shared about her engagement to Travis Kelce, why she wanted this album to sound completely different than the rest and why it was important to bring it to theaters for fans. Plus, is she team Conrad or team Jeremiah?! Listen back to the full interview here 

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TAYLOR SWIFT ON HOW LIFE OF A SHOWGIRL FILM IS SIMILAR TO PAST SECRET SESSIONS:

"I just have to thank the fans for [the record-breaking film numbers] because they're 100% of the reason behind that, the fact that they wanted to go out and experience this music."

"So many artists put so much into what they make in terms of music videos, and I really love the idea that, you know, maybe we should be debuting these things in movie theaters."

"I used to do these things called Secret Sessions at my house where I would invite fans to the house and they would hear a new album that nobody had heard before, and I would basically explain the context of the songs to them before they would hear each song. So I wanted to sort of kind of infuse a little bit of that energy into these movie theater experiences and give the fans an insight into where I was coming from when I was writing these songs because like, that's my favorite part of the process. I cannot tell you how exciting it is for us when we're in the studio writing these songs and bouncing ideas off of each other, and when a lyric really clicks, like it just is my favorite part of the process. So I love getting to tell the fans kind of where I was coming from when I wrote it, but also full well knowing that it's going to go into their life and it's going to be whatever they need it to be, you know, like a good song is like a mirror, you know? Whoever looks into it sees a different thing reflecting back."

TAYLOR SWIFT ON HOW THE ERAS TOUR INFLUENCED THE ALBUM:

"I mean one thing actually ended up fueling the other, because being on the Eras Tour was an experience unlike anything I'd ever gone through in my life, and so I wanted to capture those like heightened emotions, there was such a sort of like windfall behind us. Like I just couldn't turn off the creativity and it was something that I'm always going to be so happy that we captured in real time. Max Martin and Shellback and I hadn't worked together ... in, you know, 7 or 8 years since the Reputation album. And so when we got back in the studio, it was almost like we were kind of drafting off of this creative energy that was just bouncing off of this tour.

And that was one of the reasons why I wanted to make it sort of show business themed. And I wanted it to be like pure chaos and kind of showgirls running around like just the scandal of it, the fun of it, the excitement of it. ... Showgirls inherently are entertainers. They are provocateurs. They are playful, they are mischievous, they're funny. And so I wanted to encapsulate that all in one album."

TAYLOR SWIFT ON KEEPING SOME DETAILS OF HER PROPOSAL PRIVATE:

"It's not a secret at all. ... It was for about 2 weeks. ... I definitely feel like when I talk about the wedding, I get so excited that it makes me just wanna, like, it makes you just wanna like talk about it for like an hour, but it's just sort of like, I won't stop talking if I start, you know what I mean? But I'm so happy. Thank you for being excited for us because I'm excited for us too."

"The thing is, like, I share so much of our relationship with the world that like the moment that that happened, it's like, I'll have it forever and that will always be mine. There's so much that, you know, it is shared with the world. When it comes to the fact that we're both very public facing people and both of our, you know, career paths involve entertaining people. So we're very kind of relaxed about things in a way, but we also have -- I gotta figure out like ways to make sure that I do have things that are just between us and thankfully, we do have a lot of those things, and that moment in particular is one that's always just going to be ours."

TAYLOR SWIFT ON IF SHE SAW THE PROPOSAL COMING:

"[Recording the podcast] kind of might have been part of the bait and switch and part of the like ruse. ... I do think he kind of like used the podcast as a distraction and like a ruse for him to have that entire like set up made in the backyard. He's clever, he's a clever guy. He's tricky. ... That's the thing like when he's on the field, they're like, we never know where he's gonna pop up. We never know what he's gonna do next. ... He's clever!"

TAYLOR SWIFT ON RYAN SEACREST OFFERING TO OFFICIATE THE WEDDING:

"I am honored. I am honored that you would, that you would be up for that."

TAYLOR SWIFT ON NAVIGATING THE RESPONSIBILITY OF CARRYING HER FAN BASE OF ALL AGES & MAKING NEW MUSIC:

"That's a really thoughtful and lovely question because it is something that I think about all the time. I think, you know, when the conversation of trying to get ownership of my music, that's been sort of like a conversation I've been having throughout my entire adult life, so ... I'm aware of the idea of a legacy, right? Because I've been trying to figure out how to get ownership over my musical legacy, and you do sort of, you try to be thoughtful about it. I mean ... it's from my perspective -- the people who made music when I was in my formative years of youth and preteen and teen years and in my twenties, like, those songs really helped sort of like guide my emotionality and my kind of, I don't know, like, kind of green-lighting it to be OK for me to feel certain ways and the more nuanced those songs were and the more detailed they were, the more I felt like it was fine that I was feeling these very like big detailed, nuanced, wild feelings, right? And so from where the music comes from, I'm not only focused on like just trying to be as specific as possible about how something feels for me, because I know that helped me when other artists did it, but also like variety and trying really hard to like make a different album this time than I made last time."

"The whole last album was focused strictly on poetry, strictly on poetry, and it was in the title. This one is focusing strictly on vibes and show and showmanship excitement. Mischief. And just a spectacle -- a pop spectacle and trying to do both of those things back-to-back to the best of my ability. That's because I take my job very seriously as a person whose career path is entertaining people. I really didn't want to do anything that was close to like what I did last time. And I think that the more you can vary things up and like show people sort of like a dexterity of, you can make this and then you can turn around and make this very different thing, like, that's also part of sort of an example I'm trying to set in my industry."

IS TAYLOR SWIFT TEAM CONRAD OR TEAM JEREMIAH?

"I'm Team Summer I Turned Pretty because this show has this show when I tell you that this show has completely like used my music in the most thoughtful, beautiful ways and with these important moments in Belly's life. I'm just, I'm here for whatever is next. I'm like. I support your choices, girl. I feel like my music comes from inside her mind, so I'm like, I'm really with her no matter what she goes with. I know that sounds -- but I promise that I thought about this."