Taylor Swift admits she is ‘absolutely terrified’ of ‘jinxing’ Oscars nod for her hit Only The Young

Taylor Swift sounded cautiously optimistic about her chances of earning her first Academy Award nomination for best original song. 

While chatting with Vanity Fair, the 31-year-old star reflected on the Oscars buzz surrounding her politically-charged track Only The Young, which references America’s school shooting epidemic and election night 2016.  

‘It would mean a great deal to me, especially since Only the Young immortalizes such a pivotal moment in my life and our country’s mobilization to move together toward change,’ she shared. ‘I would be incredibly honored to be included. But I am absolutely terrified to go further into the daydream for fear of jinxing it.’

The ten-time Grammy winner continued: ‘This particular song, and the process of creating it, was a perfect example of how visceral writing a song can be.’ 

When reflecting on the songwriting process, Swift explained she transports herself ‘back to a time’ she ‘felt intense emotion and write from that place.’  

‘Every once in a blue moon, you end up in the studio at the exact moment you’re feeling that raw emotion,’ she added of the song, which was written not long after she endorsed democratic candidate Phil Bredesen in the Tennessee Senate race. 

Despite Bredesen’s loss to Republican congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, her backing inspired 65,000 people to register to vote in just 24 hours. 

‘Almost the entire process of creating that song, I was fighting back tears because I was so sad about the results of the midterm elections in my state and the losses faced by superb Democratic candidates in states like Georgia and Texas,’ Swift said, nodding to Bredesen’s defeat and democrat Beto O’Rourke’s loss of a Texas Senate race. 

‘I didn’t want the defeat and hopelessness I felt for our country’s future to get the best of me. I didn’t want to weep. I wanted to have hope,’ she said.  

The recording of Only the Young was shown in her critically-acclaimed Netflix documentary Miss Americana, which was released last January and followed her political awakening. 

Her interview also comes amid news her re-recorded albums will be eligible for future Grammy Awards. 

While ‘none of the older songs would be eligible for songwriting awards,’ according to Billboard, ‘current eligibility guidelines would allow for the new performances and albums to be eligible if they were recorded within the last five years.’   

Twitters users were divided about the possibility of Swift sweeping the Grammy Awards with her old records.  

‘Ok but she already owns the Grammys she won for them so it’s stupid to allow her to submit them again,’ one person argued on Twitter. 

Another pointed out: ‘Other people have won Grammys with re-recordings so it would be stupid not to. If others are allowed she should to, same with the other way around.’  

Last week, she released a new version of her single Love Story, renamed Love Story (Taylor’s Version), which sticks closely to the original recording and even features many of the original studio musicians and touring band members.

In addition to the new versions of the original album tracks, Swift has said she’s including six unreleased bonus tracks that were never included on the original release. 

It’s unclear if the Shake It Off singer will be doling out more singles in upcoming weeks, but fans will have to wait until April 9 to listen to the full version of her rerecorded Fearless album.  

Fearless was a hit at the Grammys, where it won four awards, including the prestigious Album of the Year trophy.

Although Taylor has retained the publishing rights to her songs, and makes money every time someone streams them or purchases a download or a CD from the compositions, she didn’t own the actual master recordings, which were held by her record label Big Machine.

In 2019, she signed a new agreement with Universal Music Group giving her the rights to all future masters, which would include her surprise albums Folklore and Evermore, as well as 2019’s Lover.

However, she doesn’t have control over her massively popular albums Red and 1989, which signaled her move into pop music and away from country stardom. 

Shortly after she signed her new agreement in 2019, Braun purchased her old Big Machine label in a $300 million deal that had the bonus of giving him the masters to her first six albums.

The singer complained that the purchase ‘stripped me of my life’s work’ at the ‘hands of someone who tried to dismantle it,’ presumably referring to Braun’s work with Swift’s longtime nemesis Kanye West.

She claimed that she had approached the label about purchasing her masters, but she had been rebuffed, as Big Machine allegedly would only give her the rights to her masters if she agreed to record more albums for the label.

Even then, she would have only got the rights back to one album at a time for each new album she would produce.