Taylor Swift's Team Makes a Clever Pitch in Grammy Ad Campaign for Song of the Year

"Vote for 'Lover,'" the ad implores, "…Because this decade's most prolific songwriter has never won Grammy's song of the year."

Taylor Swift's camp came up with a clever tagline in an ad it ran Tuesday (Dec. 10) in a Grammy-themed edition of the Los Angeles Times' The Envelope section. While Swift has three Grammy nominations this year, Republic Records' ad focuses entirely on Swift's song of the year nomination: "Vote for 'Lover,'" the ad implored, "…Because this decade's most prolific songwriter has never won Grammy's song of the year."

It's an interesting approach to remind Grammy voters that Swift -- who has won enough awards to fill a museum -- has never won one particular award, the Grammy for song of the year. This is her fourth nomination in that category. Will the approach work? We'll find out on Jan. 26, when the 62nd annual Grammy Awards are presented at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

The ad doesn't get into this, but in this era of songwriting by committee, "Lover" is vying to become the first song of the year winner in 12 years that was written by just one songwriter. The last song written by just one songwriter to win the top prize was Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" (2007).

Moreover, if "Lover" wins the Grammy for song of the year, Swift will become just the second songwriter in history to win both a Grammy and a CMA Award for song of the year with different songs. She won the CMA Award in that category two years ago for her song "Better Man," which was a No. 1 hit on Hot Country Songs for Little Big Town.

Bobby Russell is the only songwriter to date to win song of the year at both shows with different songs. Russell, a Nashville native, won the 1968 Grammy for "Little Green Apples" (which was recorded by both O.C. Smith and Roger Miller) and the CMA Award that same year for "Honey" (which was a smash for Bobby Goldsboro). Russell died at age 52 in 1992.

In addition, two teams of writers won song of the year at both the Grammys and the CMAs with the same song: Wayne Carson, Johnny Christopher and Mark James won at both shows for "Always on My Mind"; Larry Henley and Jeff Silbar won at both shows for "Wind Beneath My Wings."

-- | "Because this decade's most prolific songwriter has never won Grammy's Song of the Year.” — @RepublicRecords supporting Taylor’s #Grammys nomination for #Lover with two ads in this week's Country Aircheck Newsletter [@headlineplanet] pic.twitter.com/dP6Lh229JT

— Taylor Swift News (@TSwiftNZ) December 10, 2019