157. 2026 is the Year of Taylor's Pen! Celebrating Her Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction + New York Times Interview

In fact, during The Eras Tour, she would perform three nights one weekend, and then I would have four days off during the week, and I was like, "Ah, I hope she's doing okay." [laughs]

[laughs] Genuinely, I feel like you see the tide turn in how they feel about Taylor when-

Oh, yeah

... she is more or less away from the public eye.

Like, I've seen so many TikToks come across my For You page lately that have been very pro-Taylor, like singing along to The Fate of Ophelia, and I'm like, whoa, this song dropped out-

Yeah

... of the top 10 even, and people are waiting for it.

And how did we get here, and how do I stay here? [laughs]

Exactly, and we know that the answer to staying here is for Taylor to leave long enough that people miss her.

She knows that, too.

It's a bummer that that is the case.

Like, I wish that that were not the case.

But you see it in Olivia Rodrigo releasing her new song, drop dead, and she was gone for basically three years.

I mean, not totally.

She's released singles and stuff, but, like, she had released Guts (Deluxe) two years ago.

Mm-hmm.

She released Guts three years ago.

There's this big, long waiting period, and then boom, everybody is fiending for her next single, and why? Because she was away for so long.

That's why.

Yeah.

It built some anticipation and missing.

Much needed anticipation.

So I'm very, very happy that people are hungry for Taylor Swift content again, especially given the fact that she ended up on this top 30 greatest American living, I think that was the other way around, living American songwriters.

That list somewhat came out of nowhere-

Yeah