It was a tale of two Taylors when Taylor Dayne ran into Taylor Swift at a recent event — and hilarity ensued.
Dayne recounted the story for People, recalling how they were backstage at this year’s Songwriters Hall of Fame gala.
Swift was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the ceremony, along with other songwriters including Alanis Morissette, Kenny Loggins and Gene Simmons. Dayne was on hand as a performer.
When Taylor Met Taylor
As the two women chatted, Swift discussed how Dayne’s singles “Love Will Lead You Back” and “I’ll Always Love You” have stood the test of time, remaining touchstones for people at key points in their lives.
“You just don’t understand the impact of that from weddings to people who got married to it, to people who made babies to it,” Dayne explained.
Then, Swift brought up the fact that they both shared the same name. While Swift was famously named after singer-songwriter James Taylor by her parents, Dayne — whose real name is Leslie Wunderman — chose her stage name to replace her actual one.
“Taylor Swift told me, ‘James Taylor was it.’ She goes, ‘But I asked my mom, why’d you name me a boy’s name?’”
Dayne responded as if she were Swift’s mother. “I go, ‘Well, we carefully curated that, that choice, Taylor. You were born with it, but I think … there was just a lot of [that]. Taylor is always a very original name.’”
Taylor Dayne’s Origin Story
That led Dayne to tell Swift how she landed on Taylor as her stage name, with the “boyish” moniker suggested to her by Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider.
“When Dee Snider was like, ‘You should be a Taylor or a Tommy or a Joey.’ We were like, ‘Taylor? Ooh.’ That’s what stuck,” Dayne said.
The conversation concluded with the two singers laughing at the different routes that both led them to Taylor-dom.
“So I was like, ‘I think your mother might have stolen from [James Taylor],’” Dayne says. “She’s what, 36? Sounds about right. We giggled and then, of course, I congratulated her. She’s a phenom, you know?” Dayne added.
A ‘Well-Deserved Evening’
During the ceremony, Dayne honored the songwriting duo of Terry Britten and Graham Lyle, performing their hit song that had been recorded by Tina Turner, “We Don’t Need Another Hero.”
“It was a huge, well-deserved evening,” she said of the gala.
Becoming Taylor Dayne
Interviewed by Go.Jimmy.Go, Dayne recounted the story of how Leslie Wunderman came to become Taylor Dayne.
“It was when I was recording ‘Tell it To My Heart’ with my production partner, Ric Wake. Coincidentally, Ric also happened to be working with Dee Snider around that same time. Dee and I were both Long Island kids,” she recalled.
“Ric was in session with Dee and they were becoming friendly. So Ric begins to tell Dee about my deal to do a single with ‘Tell it To My Heart’ and how he was now looking for a new name for me. So someone had mentioned the name ‘Taylor.’ That seemed to stick but we needed a last name to go with it,” she continued.
So later that night a bunch of us all went out together and literally got out the baby book and went through it line by line: ‘Taylor Dann?… No….’ ‘Taylor Dunn?…Nah!…’ ‘Hmmmm? Taylor “DAYNE!” she added. “That was it!”
