Her recording contract with Big Machine in 2005 enabled her to work on the album with the producer Nathan Chapman during her freshman year of high school.

She wrote or co-wrote all tracks of Taylor Swift; co-writers include Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, Angelo Petraglia, and Liz Rose.

By promoting Taylor Swift via the social networking site Myspace, she reached a teenage audience that had been excluded as a target demographic for country music.

[3] At 11, Swift broadened her performing capabilities by opening for Charlie Daniels and singing the national anthem of the United States at local sports games.

[6] Her performance of "America the Beautiful" at the 2002 US Open caught the attention of Dan Dymtrow, a music manager who helped 13-year-old Swift get an artist development deal with RCA Records in Nashville.

[1] Dymtrow's management led to Swift's early exposure to show business—she had an advertising tie-in with Abercrombie & Fitch, a music compilation CD with Maybelline, and a 2004 appearance in Vanity Fair.

[25] The deluxe edition features three additional songs—"I'm Only Me When I'm with You", "Invisible", "A Perfectly Good Heart"[note 2]—co-written by Orrall, Petraglia, Brett James, and Troy Verges.

[27] Big Machine was skeptical about hiring Chapman because he had never produced a commercially released studio album but conceded because Swift felt they had the "right chemistry".

[28] Taylor Swift follows the confessional songwriting practice of country music, and its lyrics were inspired by Swift's observations and reflections to depict her adolescent perceptions of her life, revolving around romantic relationships, friendships, and self-identity; she viewed her lyrics as atypical to country music's emphasis on rural lifestyles.

[30] Narrated from the perspective of a teenage girl in an American small town, the songs have their settings confined within high-school hallways and rural backroads, resulting in a personal and contemplative tone.

[49] The song describes a young girl who lacks self-esteem and disguises her inner turbulence with a smile, but Swift's character tells her that she will never overcome her struggles until she learns to love herself.

[56][57][58] Multiple others commented that the songs incorporate influences of pop,[32][54] rock,[59][60] and rap;[61] Jon Caramanica from The New York Times called the overall sound "pop-minded country".

[63] According to Maura Johnston, in her review for Pitchfork, the album is a "solid" country record, but many of its songs have a "deft melodic touch and conversational way" that make them seamlessly translatable to mainstream pop music.

[54] The opening track "Tim McGraw" is an understated acoustic guitar–driven ballad[64] that incorporates the '50s progression (I–vi–IV–V);[31] its melody is defined by repeated short motifs and variations of one figure within a small pitch range, and its refrain—and to a lesser degree, its verses—extensively uses syncopation at the sixteenth-note level.

[66] "Picture to Burn" similarly uses syncopation at the sixteenth-note level, and Swift's vocals in the song imitate the jazz–influenced flexibility of 1970s female singer-songwriters such as Rickie Lee Jones, Carole King, and Joni Mitchell.

[39] "A Place in This World" is built on picked banjos and features influences of 1990s alternative rock,[32][51] and "Cold as You" has a slow-tempo balladic production instrumented by sorrowful fiddles.

[72] In "Should've Said No", the electric guitar tone evokes the texture of rock power ballads, while the fiddles in the introduction and break and the use of minor chords and the pentatonic scale showcase influences of Anglo-American folk music.

[73] The standard album's closing track, "Our Song", is built on a banjo riff[74] with a dynamic contrast between the verses and the refrains: the verses use repeated pitches in the lower register of Swift's vocals, with her singing at one pitch for a sustained period; the refrains emphasize the fifth scale-step with a wider-ranging melody and higher-pitched vocals, resulting in an upbeat and tuneful sound.

[77] Swift spent the summer of 2006 with her mother and Big Machine personnel putting CD copies of the single to pitch to radio stations across the United States.

[86] She performed on America's Got Talent[87] and Total Request Live[88] and opened tours for other country musicians, including Rascal Flatts in October–November 2006,[86] George Strait in January–March 2007,[89] Brad Paisley in April–November 2007,[90] and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill in July 2007.

[26] Swift extensively used her social media profile on Myspace to communicate with her audiences, sharing her daily blogs and song information.

Her online marketing strategy boosted the album's popularity among teenagers and young adults, who had been excluded as the target demographics of country music.

[100] Laura Snapes of The Guardian said that critics were impressed by Swift's "pure yet prematurely wise" portrayals of adolescent feelings;[107] such reviewers include Ken Rosenbaum of The Toledo Blade,[108] Nick Cristiano of The Philadelphia Inquirer,[104] Jeff Tamarkin of AllMusic,[101] and Rolling Stone.

[60] Several critics, such as Rosebaum,[108] Johnston,[54] and Country Weekly's Chris Neal praised Swift's abilities to convey different emotions that made her songs connect with people of all ages, not just teenagers.

The Palm Beach Post's James Fontaine wrote that Taylor Swift had a musical maturity with catchy melodies that complemented the lyrical sentiments.

[56] Rosenbaum[108] and The Morning Call's Keith Groller praised Swift's vocals,[58] and Cristiano complimented the acoustic country sounds for showcasing the "taste and restraint of the singing and writing".

[54] In less complimentary reviews, Tamarkin criticized some unnecessary "gloss" to the songs,[101] and Chrissie Dickinson of the Chicago Tribune found Taylor Swift "pleasant enough" but not groundbreaking.

[32][54][113] According to Perone, the songs evoke high-school sentiments while being "general and vague" about the characters' ages, suggesting that they could have been written by someone more experienced in life than the teenage Swift at the time.

[60] Swift's songs detailing her personal experiences and her online marketing via Myspace resonated with teenagers—a demographic that had been neglected as a target audience in country music.

[139][142] Besides shaping Swift's artistry, the confessional songs about unrequited love and heartbreak inspired a subsequent generation of singer-songwriters[139] such as Conan Gray and Olivia Rodrigo.