The 76-year-old music legend recalled the surreal appearance during a new interview with USA Today published on Wednesday, May 8, when he was asked if he has ever had a conversation with Swift, 34, about her being his namesake.

Taylor then recounted his first meeting with the “Anti-Hero” songstress, which he said was about “15-16 years ago.”
“We did a benefit for [the Candie’s Foundation], an organization that tries to help with teenage pregnancy, and it was interesting,” he recalled. “We were both there with guitars and played a couple of songs. I was performing with my wife and may have had a friend of ours playing cello and Taylor was there just playing by herself.”

“She was just a teen,” the “You’ve Got a Friend” crooner said. “She told me she had listened to my music a lot and that her folks had named her with me in mind.”
Throughout her entire career, Swift has been vocal about her love for Taylor’s music, even mentioning the songwriter by name in her song “Begin Again” off her Red album.

Swift previously told her fans about the way that she found out about the inspiration behind her name years ago, explaining the story to the crowd on her Speak Now World Tour stop at Madison Square Garden in November 2011.

At the time, Swift remembered telling her mom, Andrea Swift about her chorus class at school, and how the only song she enjoyed singing during it was Taylor’s “Fire and Rain.”
“And then she said, ‘It’s really funny that you say that ’cause you’re kind of named after him,'” Swift recalled, noting that the moment was the “first time” she learned where her name had come from.

Swift ended up bringing Taylor out for that concert, and they performed “Fire and Rain” together.