She looks as if she’s dancing at home in front of a mirror: At her Glamour photo shoot in Nashville, 20-year-old Taylor Swift is skipping, jumping, shimmying her shoulders and lip-synching the words to Phoenix’s pop song “1901.” In truth, she’s vamping for the photographer, and what I am seeing before me is a pro, an artist who seems to have matured by leaps and bounds since 15 months ago, when I interviewed her on the set of her Fearless tour in Biloxi, Mississippi. Not that I should be surprised: This has been the Year of Taylor Swift. Apparently, it wasn’t enough to have the top-selling album of 2009, or to become the female artist with the most Top 40 singles this decade (take that, Kanye!). No, this year she topped even herself: She was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, won four Grammys, including Album of the Year, met Bill Clinton and sang onstage with Stevie Nicks.


After Swift finishes the shoot and sits down, she’s out of breath, but for her that’s the new normal. A full four days after moving into her brand-new condo, she’s logged precisely 10 minutes of downtime in her home. Tonight is no exception: She’ll be meeting Paul McCartney, who is playing in Nashville for the very first time. “I can’t wait!” she says. With her new album, Speak Now, about to drop, she opened up to Glamour and filled us in on everything that’s happened—and everything that’s to come.


GLAMOUR: This has been a crazy year for you: Have you had time to appreciate what you’ve achieved, or is it too much to take in?


TAYLOR SWIFT: I’ve gone through a few different phases of gratitude. When it’s happening, you’re all about [what’s next] and trying not to make a misstep. When it came time to lock myself away and make my next album, I had a feeling of, Wow, that really was something, wasn’t it? I drive down the same streets I used to drive years ago, when I was just dreaming about stuff like this. So I feel total happiness and anticipation for the next thing.


GLAMOUR: What is next?


TAYLOR SWIFT: My next album is something I’m really proud of. I can only write about what I’ve been through. And a lot has happened in the past two years.


GLAMOUR: Like that song about Kanye [who famously dissed her at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards]?


TAYLOR SWIFT: [Laughs.] Everything that happens to me gets put into a song. For some reason, I’m really comfortable talking about my personal life in songs. There, I don’t hold back: names, dates, times, expressions on people’s faces, exactly where we were and how it felt, what I wish I would have said to them in the moment. So I’m not only excited about sharing the songs with fans; I’m also pretty interested to hear the response from the guys I’ve written about on this record.