How I came to understand Taylor Swift—and what she gets right about success

If you had told my younger self that one day I'd not only become a Taylor Swift fan but also write a book about her, I would have laughed. In 2006, when Swift released her debut album, I was a 23-year-old graduate student in film studies, obsessed with Radiohead and European art films. A teenage country-pop singer playing to arenas full of screaming girls? That wasn't just outside my taste—it felt far outside what I'd considered "serious" music.

That skepticism wasn’t unusual. Swift’s...