Swift was born in the borough of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. She is the daughter of Scott Swift, a stock broker, and his wife Andrea, a homemaker. She has a younger brother, Austin. When she was in fourth grade, Swift won a national poetry contest with a three-page poem titled "Monster In My Closet". At ten, Swift began writing songs and singing at karaoke contests, festivals, and fairs around her hometown. One summer, she devoted herself to writing a 350-page novel, which remains unpublished. Her first major show was a well-received performance at the Bloomsburg Fair. Swift began learning to play guitar from a computer repairman who showed her how to play three chords. After learning those three chords, she wrote her first song, "Lucky You". She began writing songs regularly and used it as an outlet to help her with her pain from not fitting in at school. Other kids would react badly to her so she wrote songs about them. Swift's greatest musical influence is Shania Twain. Swift released her debut single, "Tim McGraw", in mid-2006, reaching number 6 on Billboard magazine's Hot Country Songs chart. Her self-titled debut album was later released on October 24, 2006. Swift wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on the album, which debuted at number 19 on the Billboard 200 and sold 39,000 copies during its first week. It later peaked at number one at Billboard Top Country Albums and number five on the Billboard 200. It also spent eight consecutive weeks at the top of the Top Country Albums charts and remained at the top for 24 out of 91 weeks. The only other country artists this decade to achieve the number-one sales position for 20 weeks or more are The Dixie Chicks and Carrie Underwood. As of November 2008, Taylor Swift has sold over three million copies and 7.5 million single downloads. Swift has surpassed the 200 million mark for music streams on MySpace. She is currently ranked in the Top 10 for the most MySpace visits for all genres of music, and is MySpace's current top-ranking Country artist.Swift is the most searched musical artist on MySpace in 2008. The music video for "Tim McGraw" set a record by appearing for 30 consecutive weeks on GAC's fan-voted weekly Top 20 music countdown show, and reached number one on CMT's video charts. The video also won Swift an award for Breakthrough Video of the Year at the 2007 CMT Music Awards.[38] Her pursuit of country music stardom was the subject of "GAC Short Cuts", a part-documentary, part-music-video series airing since the summer of 2006 on the country music channel. On May 15, 2007, Swift performed "Tim McGraw" at the Academy of Country Music Awards. She sang the song to Tim McGraw in the audience, and introduced herself for the first time to him. Swift has been an opening act for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill on their Soul2Soul 2007 tour. She has opened in the past for George Strait, Brad Paisley and Rascal Flatts as well. On November 7, 2007, Swift won the 2007 CMA Horizon Award and also performed "Our Song," the third single from her album, which would go on to become her first #1 song the week of December 22, 2007, where it leaped up from the #6 spot. This was the biggest jump to Number One since January 1998, when Tim McGraw's "Just to See You Smile", also jumped from #6 to #1. "Our Song" spent six weeks at #1 on the Country charts and also peaked at #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #24 on the Billboard Pop 100. Swift also recorded a holiday album, Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection, which was released October 16, 2007, exclusively available at Target stores. The album, which was not as successful as her self-titled debut, featured both holiday classics such as "Last Christmas" and original songs written by Swift. Swift was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award in the category of Best New Artist, but lost to Amy Winehouse. Swift's successful single, "Picture to Burn" was the fourth single from her debut album. The song debuted early in 2008 and peaked at #3 on the Billboard Country Chart in the spring of 2008. Swift's lyrics are highly autobiographical; she has said that "If you listen to my albums, it’s like reading my diary." For instance the song "Forever & Always" was inspired by her relationship with Joe Jonas, while the song "Hey Stephen" was written about a guy who opened some shows for her. "Fifteen" was written about her freshman year of high school. It has been said that her lyrics "can be tinged with acid: the quiet loner girl getting one over on the cheerleaders, or a caustic payback for the boy who dumped her." She's also indicated that she tries to write so her fans can relate to the lyrics, saying "My goal is to never write songs that my fans can't relate to." In 2008, Swift was in a high-profile relationship with pop singer Joe Jonas. On November 11, 2008, in an interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Swift claimed that Jonas broke up with her in a 27-second phone call. In explanation, Jonas wrote on his MySpace blog (in a post that has since been removed): "I called to discuss feelings with the other person, and obviously these feelings were not well received. I did not end the phone call. Someone else ended it for me. Phone calls only last as long as the person on the other end is willing to talk." Furthermore, Jonas says that he has tried to call her since the breakup, in an attempt at reconciliation, but received no response. During the same interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Swift revealed that the heartbreak song "Forever & Always" on her album Fearless, recorded in late September/early October 2008, was inspired by Jonas.