Among the most touching new songs is "The Best Day," a love letter to her mother, with shout-outs to her father, Scott, and younger brother, Austin. (Andrea Swift usually accompanies her daughter while she's on tour.)
As a whole, "Fearless" represents a major advance in her confidence and acumen as a songwriter and evinces complete faith in her conversational vocal style, one that positions her as the celebrity teen that other girls would most like to hang out with and the one most boys would want to ask to the prom.
That's still something with which Swift struggles. For most of her time in high school, she and Abigail, who is mentioned by name in "Fifteen," thought of themselves as ugly ducklings.
"We kind of came to the conclusion in ninth grade that we were never going to be popular, so we should just stick together and have fun and not take ourselves too seriously," Swift said. "That's why I had so much fun in high school, because I didn't focus too much on the fact that I wasn't really in the clique."
--
Signature look
Not surprisingly, Swift is a master multi-tasker. While previewing the album for a reporter, she simultaneously took part in a telephone conference with members of Def Leppard, the British hard rock band with which she recently taped an installment of CMT's "Crossroads" series, slated to premiere Nov. 7. ("My mom literally listened to them when she was pregnant with me," she said, "and then raised me on Def Leppard music.")
Just as one of her new songs would end, she would race in from the other room, cellphone still glued to her ear, grab her iPod, scroll to the next song she wanted to show off, punch it up, then fly back into the adjoining room, without dropping a beat of her chat with the Leppard guys.
She's in her now signature look: a sundress and cowgirl boots, her wrists ringed with bracelets made and sent to her by various fans. Her fashion sense is translating into a line of inexpensive sundresses that'll be sold at Wal-Mart stores. "I always thought if I ever were to do a fashion line, I wouldn't want to do [clothes] that girls like me and girls my age couldn't afford," she said.
It's one more expression of Swift's powerful Everygirl connection with her audience, which she's strengthened with practically a daily presence on her MySpace page.
"Blogging has been really fun because I like to let people into my life as much as possible. Obviously," she said, bursting into laughter. "I think it's important for the people who keep you going and support you and have your back out there in the world to know that you're thinking of them all the time."
But that takes time and energy, especially when it's added to everything else Swift does.
"I get tired, yeah. A lot. But . . . I would so much rather be hopping from a plane to a tour bus to go on a stage to doing an interview to doing a talk show to doing this performance to doing that performance to doing an awards show," Swift said. "So when I start to get really physically worn down, I just mentally go back to the place when I would have to get up really early for a test in high school, and I'm like, 'Hey, this is pretty cool.' "
--
randy.lewis@latimes.com
