On Taylor Swift's new album, "Red," there's a song where the 22-year-old superstar sings about a fictional one: a famous singer who spends years under the glare of the spotlight, then ditches her uncomfortable fame for a life of solitude.

It sounds like Swift might be mapping out her eventual exit plan on "The Lucky One," which depicts the troubling side of celebrity: tabloids, paparazzi, living life in a bubble. It's certainly a scenario Swift can relate to: She's become a fixture in the gossip pages, especially with her penchant for famous boyfriends, including her latest, Conor Kennedy of the storied political clan. (They reportedly recently broke up.)

But if "Lucky One" has a plotline that Swift would eventually like to live out, for now, it's just a daydream: Swift has come to embrace her larger-than-life status -- and all the headaches that come with it.

"There's a lot of trade-offs. There's the microscope that's always on you. The camera flashes, the fear that something you say will be taken the wrong way and you'll let your fans down. There's the fear that you'll be walking down the street and your skirt will blow up and you'll be in the news for three months," says Swift, sitting at the dining room table in her apartment in Nashville, dressed in a playful black shirt decorated with dogs and an appropriate red skirt, her house decorated with a whimsical flair, including mismatched chairs, a small pond in the living room and

As she rattles off a few more of the negatives of being in the limelight, she adds: "You're scared of a lot of things for a lot of the time, but the trade-off of being able to get on a big stage and sing your songs -- it's worth it."

Swift is perhaps on the biggest stage of her young career with the release of "Red." She's already scored her first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with the Max Martin/Shellback-produced "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." The song is still in the top 10, and has company with her new song, "I Knew You Were Trouble," which takes the country star into further pop territory with its use of auto-tune and dance synths. With 1.21 million copies sold, "Red" charted the best first-week sales of a CD in more than a decade.

While "Red" still has plenty of tunes that cater to her country fan base, as Swift was crafting the album, she was determined to "step outside my comfort zone."

"On my fourth album, I wanted to do something that wasn't what I've done for the first three," she says.

Scott Borchetta, head of Big Machine Records, has worked with Swift since she was a teenager and watched her grow from a promising young country ingenue to one of music's best-selling artists. As she worked on the follow-up to 2010's "Speak Now" -- which sold a million copies in its first week, netted her multiple awards and was the anchor for her sold-out world tour -- he noticed she was exploring other sounds not usually heard on country radio. He encouraged her to seek out producers like Martin, best known for crafting hits for Britney Spears, Pink and Kelly Clarkson.

"If you're going to write a country song, run toward country. If you're going to write a pop song, write and produce it with the guys who are the best and biggest, if that's what it feels like," he said.

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Taylor Swift gladly bears tabloid glare for success