xo A midsummer nights blog xo

I'm writing you on a summer afternoon in Nashville. All the idealistic markers of a perfect day are presenting themselves right now in this moment. I mean, we're talking chirping birds, blinding sunshine, a just-the-right-amount breeze.. There's the distant sound of power washing from someone else's deck and my feet are up on the patio table. I just ate a really awesome sandwich. Such a simple, good day. And so I just wanted to say hi.

I go back on the road tonight and this weekend we'll play in Greensboro, Knoxville, and Louisville. And I guess I should just tell you up front that playing shows on this tour is the best time I've ever had onstage. The crowds we've been playing for have been so unbelievable.. The kind of crowds that jump up and down the entire show, making our view from the stage look like a giant ocean of dancing, jumping people. These are the kinds of crowds that sing the words louder and more passionately than I ever could've imagined. And to have a show that includes ballerinas and fireworks and entire scenery changes.. it's thrilling for me. My band and I have already come away with memories to last a lifetime, and it's not even halfway done yet! The other night, we were playing our first of two shows at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts. I'm all the way at the end of the stadium, playing "Fearless", and I swear as soon as I sang the words "With you I'd dance in a storm in my best dress, fearless"… I felt a drop of rain hit me. Then there was another one, then there was another. And then it turned into an absolute downpour. Everyone is soaking wet. And at this point in the show, about halfway through our set, this fear came over me that everyone was going to leave the concert. I tried to push it way back into the back of my mind and just kept playing, and to my surprise, the strangest thing happened. No one left. Instead, this ocean of people in front of us just started dancing even more, screaming even louder… And that night I actually got to dance in a storm with them. In my best dress. I'll never forget it.

Sometimes I get scared that there's got to be some balance to the way things work in the universe-- like you pay for good days by then having bad days, you pay for joy with pain.. Like if you have the most perfect week ever, watch out! It's about to get really awful! Some sort of minor or major tragedy is bound to strike! I hope that's not the way it all goes down. I really hope not. Because this has been a really beautiful summer so far. Lately, I've been writing a LOT. Like, all of a sudden, everything I've wanted to say, express, or just let out for the past several months has just recently become a song. I'm really excited about that. It's a freeing feeling when all of a sudden one day, you're able to verbalize exactly how you feel in a verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus pattern.

Hey so… thank you so much for the Teen Choice Award nominations!! Six whole nominations! Thank you. I'll be there this year and it will be my first time attending the TCA's!!! Thank you!

I want to thank you for the happiness I've felt so far this summer. I've learned to never take happiness for granted. It's the most precious, rare feeling. This summer, for me, it comes from you.. driving to the shows with "Speak Now" painted on your car windows or simply singing along when "Story of Us" comes on the radio. It comes from you, standing up in the last rows or the front ones, having taken the time to know every word I'll sing that night… Oh, and it also comes from an entire stadium that not only stuck with me through the rain, but celebrated it. Mostly it's from all the times you've made me feel like we're in this together. I hope you have a wonderful July 4th weekend and I hope you have a bunch of simply wonderful days this summer.

Taylor