Taylor Swift: “Carole King is the Greatest Songwriter of All Time”

On Saturday night, Taylor Swift kicked off the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony with her own rendition of Rock Hall inductee Carole King’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow.” The song, a love letter written for her first husband, Gerry Goffin, was a chart-topper at the time and an iconic track today. 

Swift honored King not only with a stellar performance but also with endearing words emphasizing how integral King was not only to Swift’s own career but to the presence of female artists in the music industry as a whole. 

“Carole King is the greatest songwriter of all time,” is a fact Swift shared was a cemented belief in her household growing up. She celebrated King for “navigating the politics of an era that didn’t make space for a female genius. Slowly but surely Carole King worked to create one, and it will be hers forever.”

King, who called Swift her “professional granddaughter,” owned her legacy as she accepted her second induction–the first for songwriting–into the Rock Hall. 

“I keep hearing it, so I’m gonna have to try to own it, that today’s female singers and songwriters stand on my shoulder,” said King. “Let it not be forgotten they also stand on the shoulders of the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. May she rest in power – Miss Aretha Franklin.”

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