The multi-award winner, who began her career as a country music artist, admitted she spent her childhood "fixated" on Nashville, the home of country music, in a statement delivered on her behalf by the Executive Director of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Mark Ford.
Her fellow nominees this year included Miranda Lambert, Chris Stapleton, and Phil Vasser. Lyle Lovett will also take the honor as the Veteran Songwriter/Artist, Bruce Channel as Veteran Songwriter, and both Lee Thomas Miller and Shawn Camp as Contemporary Songwriters.
"From the time I started writing songs as a child, I fixated on Nashville as the perfect place to be," Taylor, 36, said in acknowledgement of the accolade.
The 36-year-old singer became the Hall of Fame's youngest-ever inductee at a ceremony at Nashville's Music City Center on Monday.
The Shake It Off hitmaker was introduced by country music star Brad Paisley, while Lainey Wilson performed a rendition of Swift's hit Love Story.
During her speech, Swift joked that she has been estranged from Paisley since 2007, when he played a prank on her while she was the opening act on his tour.
"He took a tour prank too far. Filled my entire tour bus with live crickets. Thousands of them. Oh my God. For months, I couldn't sleep. Just chirp... chirp... chirp," she light-heartedly recalled. "But you know what? You did such an amazing job with that introduction, I think we can let bygones be bygones. Thank you. Yeah, I think we're good now."
Elsewhere in her speech, Swift credited the Nashville music community for giving her the foundation to "genre-hop" and work in so many different ways with lots of different people.
"The only reason that I've been able to have that kind of dexterity in my creative process is because of the fundamentals and the foundation that I learned here in Nashville, and I never forget that for a single second," she said. "I tell every single person I know about what we have here, and I'm so incredibly honoured to be inducted into this sacred club, especially at this point in my life."
