Taylor Swift made history on Monday, October 26, when she became the youngest artist inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The 36-year-old chose a romantic velvet mini for her big moment at Nashville's Music City Center, wearing a burgundy Raisa Vanessa dress with sparkly embellishment and orange floral detailing.
She wore her blonde hair in a half-up 'do and accessorized with statement silver earrings, a matching necklace, and purple heels.
Taylor gave a heartfelt speech at the ceremony, opening with a joke about country music icon Brad Paisley, who inducted her at the organization's 56th annual gala.
"I'm really surprised to see you here, actually, because we've been estranged since 2007," Taylor quipped.
The 14-time Grammy winner recalled how Brad took a prank "too far" when she opened for him on his Bonfires & Amplifiers Tour in 2007, filling her "entire tour bus with live crickets, thousands of them."
© Getty Images"For months I couldn't sleep. Just chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp all night," she recalled. "I considered buying a pet lizard to eradicate the problem," Taylor added, before deciding to let "bygones be bygones" after his introduction.
Taylor's speech
During her speech, the "Fate of Ophelia" singer broke down what "Nashville," "songwriters," and "fame" meant to her.
"Fame, that's sort of a byproduct of my love for music. It's kind of like songwriter plus Nashville equals fame," she said, per Rolling Stone.
"It's why a lot of people know the words to my music, which is awesome. It's also why there's sort of like these daily random doses of chaos that just pop up in my life every once in a while, every couple of hours.
"That can be kind of weird, but I have tools in place in my mind that help me navigate that and get back to true north when life feels so bizarre.
© Alamy Stock Photo"Those tools are my memories and the memories that I visit most frequently when I need to return back to some semblance of remembering what normalcy is and why I do this."
Taylor admitted that she has been "very fortunate" to "genre-hop and travel the world," enabling her to "write with so many different people and in so many different ways."
© Getty ImagesExpressing her love for the songwriting community she grew up with in Nashville, she explained: "The only reason that I've been able to have that kind of dexterity in my creative process is because of the fundamentals and the foundation that I learned here in Nashville, and I never forget that for a single second.
"I tell every single person I know about what we have here, and I'm so incredibly honored to be inducted into this sacred club, especially at this point in my life."
© Getty Images"It's not lost on me how crazy this is," she continued. "I will cherish it forever because Nashville is the place that honed and polished the thing about myself and the thing about my life that I am the most proud of and the most passionate about.
"So to be here with you and to be getting to have this moment, I am truly grateful and it just feels like one of those amazing Nashville moments I'm going to revisit on a rainy day," Taylor concluded.
