When Taylor Swift is inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame at its annual awards gala at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York on June 11, she’ll set a couple of records. At 36, she’ll be the youngest woman ever ushered into the SHOF, which inducted its first class of songwriters in 1970. She’ll also be the first person to graduate from winning the organization’s Hal David Starlight Award (an accolade for a songwriter who shows promise, which Swift won in 2010) to full membership status.
A songwriter with a notable catalog of songs qualifies for SHOF induction 20 years after his or her first commercial release of a song. Swift’s first single, “Tim McGraw,” arrived in June 2006, so she just made it this year.
This year’s list of inductees includes three songwriters or songwriting teams who have won Grammy Awards for song of the year — Terry Britten and Graham Lyle (Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It”), Kenny Loggins (The Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool Believes,” a co-write with 2025 honoree Michael McDonald) and Christopher “Tricky” Stewart (Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies [Put a Ring on It],” a co-write with Beyoncé, Terius “The-Dream” Nash and Thaddis Harrell). Swift has yet to win a Grammy for song of the year, despite a record-tying eight nominations, which extend from “You Belong With Me” (2010, just months before her aforementioned Hal David Starlight Award honor) to “Fortnight” (2025).
Swift won’t be the only record-setter among this year’s honorees. Check out who else will make history below.
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This year’s recipient of the Hal David Starlight Award will become the first British woman to pick up the honor — and the second Brit overall following Ed Sheeran.
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John Fogerty
This year’s recipient of the Johnny Mercer Award, the organization’s top honor, will become the sixth Mercer recipient who first achieved prominence in a pop, rock or R&B group or duo. He follows Paul Simon, Smokey Robinson, Phil Collins, Van Morrison and Lionel Richie.
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Alanis Morissette
Morissette will be the fourth SHOF inductee who won a Juno Award for songwriter of the year following her fellow Canadians Paul Anka, Gordon Lightfoot and Leonard Cohen. Morissette won in that Juno category in 1996 and 1997.
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Walter Afanasieff
Afanasieff and Mariah Carey (who was inducted in 2022) are the only songwriters with two songs that have each logged 16 or more weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. They co-wrote “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which has topped the Hot 100 for a record 22 weeks, and “One Sweet Day,” which led the chart in 1995-96 for a then-record 16 weeks. (The members of Boyz II Men were also co-writers of the latter song.)
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Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley
Simmons and Stanley will be inducted six months after their band, KISS, was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors. “Rock and Roll All Night,” their most famous co-write, was a Hot 100 hit twice in 1975 — in a studio version and a subsequent live recording.
A version of this story appears in the May 30, 2026, issue of Billboard.
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