Taylor Swift Says She Was 'Deeply Impacted by Emo Music' + Praises 2 of the Genre's Stars

It's a big week for swemos — that's "Swiftie emos" for those of you out of the loop —as Taylor Swift praised a pair of 2000s pop-punk icons in a new interview with The New York Times.

Swift, who was named one of the 30 greatest living American songwriters by the Times, expressed her admiration for Dashboard Confessional's Chris Carrabba and Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz, specifically citing their vivid lyricism.

READ MORE: The Best Pop-Punk Album of Each Year of the 2000s

Taylor Swift Was 'Intensely Impacted by Emo Music'

"I was the most intensely impacted by emo music, right?" Swift said. "Dashboard Confessional, Chris Carrabba. Fall Out Boy, Pete Wentz's lyrics. How they take a common phrase and then they just twist the knife of it, right?"

Swift then got specific. "Like, 'I'm just a notch in your bedpost, but you're just a line in a song. Drop a heart, break a name.' Right?" she said, citing a line from Fall Out Boy's "Sugar, We're Goin Down." "Like, it's 'drop a name, break a heart,' but they switched it. And those are the kind of lyrics where I would read the lyrics to those songs — or the specificity of 'Hands Down' by Dashboard Confessional, where I'd be reading those lyrics and I'd just finish reading a line and just go, 'Oh, my God.'"

READ MORE: The Best Love Song by 22 Pop-Punk + Emo Bands

Swift's appreciation of pop-punk and emo artists is no secret. She previously collaborated with Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump on "Electric Touch," which she released in 2023 as a vault track off Speak Now (Taylor's Version), the re-recording of her 2010 album. She also teamed up with Panic! at the Disco lead vocalist Brendon Urie on her 2019 Lover lead single "ME!" And there were tours with Paramore as support.

What Have Pop-Punk and Emo Stars Said About Taylor Swift?

It's a mutual admiration society between Swift and the pop-punk stars she's professed to enjoy. Stump previously praised Swift for the consistency of her songwriting and ability to maintain her "sense of self" throughout her vast catalog.

"The thing that shocks me, that is just jaw-dropping, is the consistency of her work," the frontman told the Glass Slipping podcast last year. "So from the time she's a kid and she's writing these songs, they're her. That's the thing that's interesting. You know that she's working with other writers ... but they all sound like her. They all get her. So she must be doing a lot too. She could potentially be doing all of it, for all we know. ... But the point is that she is able to have the sense of self to know when to insert and when not to."

READ MORE: 11 Essential Early 2000s Emo Albums Everyone Should Own on Vinyl

Carrabba also expressed his appreciation for Swift on Instagram, where he shared the relevant excerpt from her New York Times interview.

"@taylorswift has been so kind to me over the years," Carrabba wrote. "To hear her express how my songs affected her was a lovely surprise. Everything is connected. I feel fortunate to be a link in the chain."

See what other rock musicians have spoken highly of Taylor Swift below: