Footage of Taylor Swift receiving one of her first guitars has gone viral.
Filmed on Christmas Day in 1997, the clip shows the future pop star unwrapping an acoustic guitar.
“Oh my God,” 8-year-old Swift exclaimed, adding: “I. Am. Happy.”
Terry Wyatt/Getty Images Entertainment
User @historyinmemes posted the video on X, formerly Twitter, and it has since received 2.8 million views and hundreds of comments on the platform.
“This is so precious,” one commenter wrote.
“The reaction is priceless,” another added.
A user said, “Looks like Santa really knows a thing or two about music!”
“This moment was the start of something big!” another wrote.
Another user said, “That was the best investment ever!”
“Watching an old video of someone discovering their passion and knowing fully well that they became a legend in that field is incredibly satisfying,” a commenter added.
The gift-unwrapping moment also appears in the music video for the singer’s 2019 holiday single, “Christmas Tree Farm.”
As a child, the Grammy winner helped to tend to the 11-acre Christmas tree farm her father, Scott Swift, bought in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania.
The music icon told Esquire in 2014 that it was her job to pick praying mantis pods from the pine trees, preventing the bugs from hatching in buyers’ homes.
At age 14, Swift became the youngest person ever signed to Sony/ATV Publishing, with her family relocating to Nashville so she could pursue her music career.
In a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone, Swift said Tom Petty inspired her to play guitar.
Praising the late rock icon’s music, Swift said: “He motivated thousands of guitarists to learn to play just because they wanted to be able to play ‘Free Fallin.’ Count me as one of them.”
Swift has also cited country music stars among her early influences—including the Chicks, Faith Hill, Shania Twain and LeAnn Rimes.
Along with winning 14 Grammy awards, Swift has broken several records since moving from country music to mainstream pop in the late 2000s.
Her 10th studio album, Midnights, became Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day upon its release in 2022, the company said. She was also the platform’s top artist in 2023, with her hits streamed 26.1 billion times around the world.
Tuesday, Swift became the first female artist to have 10 solo singles receive over 1 billion streams—making her the second-most-listened-to artist globally, behind the Weeknd.
Swift’s Eras tour has also hit several milestones. After the tour was announced in 2022, so many fans attempted to buy tickets that they crashed the Ticketmaster website.
The tour’s opening night, in Glendale, Arizona, was the most-attended gig by a female artist—with 69,000 concertgoers turning up to watch Swift perform. The tour has since earned more than $1 billion, making it the highest-grossing tour of all time.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.