Country News

Country News

Country News

As Taylor Swift, recently named Time‘s Person Of The Year, continues to dominate the music world on her 34th birthday (12/13), we like to recall that her incredible career started in Nashville as a country singer.

Taylor is also dominating the world of sports talk as her 34th year begins, and her romance with Travis Kelce is the topic of many football stories. Her attendance at his games with the Kansas City Cheifs has become somewhat of a Taylor Swift spotting for stadium fans and on TV, whose cameras often show her during televised NFL games where she cheers on her boyfriend.

It was a country music award and a video award, which Swift won her very first honor in 2007, getting CMT’s “Breakthrough Video of the Year” award for her work on the video “Tim McGraw.” She was nominated against Jason Aldean’s “Amarillo Sky,” Kellie Pickler’s “Red High Heels,” and The Wreckers (a duo featuring Michelle Branch) “Leave The Pieces.”

At the time, she told us backstage after her win that she missed her prom for the CMT Awards. She offered, “I am so, so happy about everything that has gone down this past year. I think it’s OK to miss prom for this. I think I’m going to stare at this award every single day and say, ‘I think it’s OK to miss prom.’ I love this.”

Big winners at the 2007 CMT Music Awards were Carrie Underwood for Female Video of the Year for “Before He Cheats,” Group Video of the Year went to Rascal Flatts for “What Hurts The Most,” and CMT favorite Kenny Chesney won Male Video of the Year for “You Save Me.”

Music videos have always been a big deal in Swift’s career, even in her early country music years, when she started to direct for the first time in 2010. As we celebrate all things Taylor today (12/13), along with all the other millions of “Swifties,” we focus on five of what we believe are her best country music videos.

RELATED: Taylor Swift Donates $1 Million To Tennessee Following Tornado Outbreak

  • "Tim McGraw" (2006)

    Taylor wrote this song with her frequent co-writer at the time, Liz Rose, while Swift was a freshman at Hendersonville High School, north of Nashville. Swift said at the time that she conceived the idea for the song in math class noting that she was “sitting there, and started humming this melody.” Rose said Swift showed up at her after-school job, writing songs for Sony/ATV Music, “with the idea and the melody, knowing exactly what she wanted.”

    The music video for the song was filmed at the former home of Johnny and June Carter-Cash, which burned down the following year. This video also won Taylor her first-ever award from CMT in 2007.

  • "Picture To Burn" (2008)

    Swift chose football player Justin Sandy (former Tennessee Titan) to portray her ex-boyfriend in the video, saying at the time that he had a “classic and suspiciously” perfect demeanor; she described him as “real life Ken.” This video also guest-stars Taylor’s backup band and real-life high school friend Abigail Anderson.

  • "You Belong With Me" (2009)

    Actor Lucas Till, whom Swift met while on set of Hannah Montana: The Movie in April 2008, portrays the male lead in this video. Filming took place within two days in Gallatin and Hendersonville in Nashville. Taylor portrays two different characters in this video: a blonde and a brunette. Both characters are going after the same guy in the mini-film.

  • "Mine" (2010)

    This is the first video in which Swift, along with Roman White (director on many of her early videos), acts as a director. Taylor Swift chose her friend Jaclyn Jarrett, the daughter of professional wrestler Jeff Jarrett, to play the younger version of herself in the video. Kyra Angle, the daughter of professional wrestler Kurt Angle, also appeared in the music video.

  • "Mean" (2011)

    Swift wrote this song in response to a critic who was a bit hard on her. At the time, the critic chastised her after her performance at the 2010 GRAMMY Awards, where she sang off-key. After that GRAMMY performance, other critics said her performance was “weak.” The music video was shot over two days in Los Angeles, with the Orpheum Theatre as its backdrop.

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