Taylor Swift says she wrote 'The Outside' when she was 12

Taylor SwiftHer passion for writing music dates back to her childhood.

“I wrote this when I was 12 years old, so this song is 175 years old,” Swift, 34, told the audience at her third concert in Tokyo, Japan, on Friday, February 9, just before she started playing. According to her, 'The Outside' is her second surprise song social media.

Swift took to the piano to give an emotional rendition of the ballad. This was the first time Swift performed the song as a surprise song during her performance Eras tour.

“How could I ever try to get better? / No one ever lets me in / And I can still see you, this ain't the best view / On the outside, looking in / I've been to a lot of lonely places / I've never been on the outside,” she sang .

Swift also performed “Superman.” Speak now as the first surprise song, which she had also not played during the American leg of her tour.

“The Outside” was released in 2006 on Swift's debut album of the same name, which the Grammy winner has yet to re-record.

After releasing her debut album, Swift opened up about what inspired her to write the song at such a young age.

“It's about what I was going through at that moment. I was a complete outcast at school and never fit in, never felt like I belonged,” she said in an interview with Entertainment weekly in 2007. “When I was twelve or thirteen, I would often write songs about relationships, when I wasn't in a relationship, because I would look at other people and try to observe what they were going through. But in the case of “The Outside,” I wrote exactly what I saw. I wrote from pain.”

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Ethan Miller/TAS23/Getty Images Taylor Swift may be a billionaire, but she's still a recognizable queen. Since embarking on her Eras Tour in March, Swift has wowed fans and critics alike with her impressive, record-breaking concert, which lasts over three and a half hours and features the singer performing a 44-song setlist. […]

Swift has come a long way since she wrote “The Outside.” She has won multiple Grammys and made history at the recent awards show when she won Album of the Year for her 2022 record, Midnights, making history as the first person to win the category four times. She also took home the award for Best Pop Vocal Album. During her speech, she announced that her eleventh album would be released later this year.

“[The way I can celebrate] is to tell you a secret that I've been hiding from you for the past two years, which is that my brand new album is coming out on April 19th,” Swift said as she held her 13th Grammy trophy in her hands. “It is called The department of tortured poetsand I'm going to place the cover backstage now.