Taylor Swift is happy to be your break-up musician

And it's not just show time, although she is on stage in front of thousands in Detroit as part of her super-sized Red tour.

"50,000 people have opted in to hear me sing about my feelings for two hours," Swift tells the mainly female crowd. "I'm told I have lots of feelings..."

Even with her tongue in cheek, those feelings are responsible for 26 million album sales and 75 million downloads in seven years - each album followed by a tour that grows in size.

It's playing to her fans where Swift is most comfortable. She can't be misquoted by nosy journalists. And she can express her sense of humour to let everyone know the diss-and-tell songwriter is firmly in on the joke.

"You never talk to him again and then you write a whole album about him," Swift says at one point, acutely aware the audience all have different assumptions about who "he" is. And they know she'll never tell.

Introducing Arms, a fan request, Swift says "I can imagine it's hard to make a relationship last. I wouldn't know ...".

She ushers Stay Stay Stay in by proudly noting "See, they don't always leave..."

Interviewing Taylor Swift is tricky. She's simultaneously open and closed. Her ability to swerve off topic during a warm anecdote is politician-like.

Personal questions are off limits, in the most polite way.

But when President Obama uses your break-up songs as a punchline to attack his political opponents, you know you occupy a rare place in pop culture.

"It's crazy to take in what's happened in the last few years," Swift says, deftly side-stepping specifically referencing her Presidential shout out. "There's no way to wrap your mind around it, no way to fully comprehend it without changing your own perception of yourself, which I'd never want to do."

"As a writer it's really important I keep my mind in check, that's the only thing that keeps me here, what comes out of my mind. So I spend a lot of time thinking about my perspective, how to look at life, how to stay happy but still feel things. Not protect myself too much but shield myself from unnecessary pain and insecurity."

Swift taps her head and jokes "You don't want to get inside here, it's very complicated".

Some of Swift's best lyrics are about the joys of falling helplessly in love (Treacherous, Love Story, Sparks Fly, Begin Again) but for the world beyond her direct fanbase, she's the bitter ex-girlfriend who gets successful revenge in song.

She doesn't mind.

"Break-ups are hard," Swift says. "And you need music to get through them. I am happy to be your go-to break-up musician.

"People like music when they're in love but they don't need it as much. You need music when you're missing someone or you're pining for someone or you're forgetting someone or you're trying to process what just happened.

"The heartbroken are a special kind of people. When you're in that spot, when you're going through it, I'll be there to hold your hand."

Swift is aware she's the target of paparazzi lenses and venomous bloggers, but it ends there.

"I don't read anything," she insists.

"It's dangerous to read the internet about yourself when you're me. Or when you're anyone in the public eye.

"You can't ever portray who you actually are in the world we live in where there's a headline and an exclamation point behind everything you say. It paints you as a cartoon no matter what.

"I'm the kind of person where if I read a detail that's wrong - we didn't go to that restaurant, that person just stopped by to say hi at the table, we weren't on a date - if I read something factually incorrect it bothers me.

"People don't know the full truth. The only way I can accurately portray my side of my story and not filter it is in my songs. My fans know that. Or I hope they get that."

Red houses Swift's most unexpected songs to date. After writing previous album Speak Now on her own, Swift collaborated with people outside the country/pop genre. She's bonded with Ed Sheeran, her duet and writing partner on Red's new single Everything Has Changed.

"We've got a lot of other stuff in the vaults we worked on," Swift says.

Sheeran is her opening act in the US and dismissed lazy rumours the pair were dating while defending his friend.

"The rumour that she dates a lot of people is a misconception, because in the time that I've known her, which has been almost two years now, she has dated two people. Fact," Sheeran told OK magazine. "And in her entire life, I think she's dated five or six people."

Sheeran helped Swift through the making of Red, after she finished two envelope-pushing songs with pop kings Max Martin and Shellback - We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together and I Knew You Were Trouble.

"I was obsessed by ..Trouble. People had to convince me about ..Never Ever," Swift says. "I thought that song was just me angrily ranting. I didn't know people would like it. I remember I played it for Ed and he said 'That's your first single, whatever mode you're in writing that song, keep going with it".

I Knew You Were Trouble saw Swift introduce dubstep to her country audience.

"We had this moment in the studio 'Can we do this? Are we allowed to do this?' but we just went for it," Swift recalls.

It has had a minor backlash in some country circles, but has also won Swift a new audience.

"I'm just happy I get to experiment." she says. "Most of my fans, if you were to look on their iPods, you'd see every possible genre of music represented in some capacity."

Trouble also became an online sensation when Swift's screams were replaced by a goat.

"It was amazing," Swift says. "When that came out I had no idea how big it was going to get. I just knew I thought it was hilarious. But apparently everybody else loved it too. I'd go around at rehearsals with the video cued up and everybody was like 'We've already seen it' That's how I knew it'd gone viral."

One of the album's - and tour's - key moments is The Lucky One. It's a tale of fame gone wrong, and seemingly a message to Swift from herself.

The lyrics detail an artist who made it famous, had their "secrets splashed on the front page" and after being "used" took "the money and your dignity and got the hell out". Swift sings "it took some time, but I understand it now".

"It's about three or four different artists, I'd never say who, but I spend a lot of time looking at other people's careers and watching them and taking note," Swift says.

"When there's a downfall - and you hate seeing downfalls - but when there is it usually comes from a loss of perspective.

Surrounding yourself with the wrong people. Downward spiralling into insecurity and self-obsession based on thinking everybody's watching you all the time."

This is a topic Swift, who is quick to call herself an "over-thinker" has spent a lot of time contemplating.

"There's a few things I try to remind myself of," she says. "People have busy lives. They don't really care about every move I make. As much as if I were to Google myself there'd probably be a new blog post every 15 seconds, people don't really care that much. I'm just happy they want to see me in concert or listen to me in their car or at home. I don't need to concern myself too much with what people think of me because it's not too much of my business.

"I think you start to become self-obsessed if you let your insecurities make a bigger deal of themselves than they should be."

The 23-year-old is also aware of the downsides of her job.

"As much as I wouldn't want to be doing anything else in order to do what you love to do, there are trade-offs. In my mind I know that but sometimes I think 'Wow, did I really do anything that wrong? Why do I feel like I'm in trouble for something?'

"Sometimes you get sucked into a vacuum of thinking that the world is watching you and waiting for you to mess up and I can't live like that. I want to have fun. You can't really have fun if you think everyone is waiting for the trip and fall."

After a long pause, Swift nominates Carly Simon as an artist whose career she admires. Side note - Simon also likes to keep her male lyrical subjects a mystery.

"Carly Simon has always been known for her songwriting and her honesty. She's known as an emotional person but a strong person. I really really look up to that. I admire her. I think she's always been beautiful and natural and seems to do it all effortlessly. There's nothing more attractive than someone who seems to live effortlessly."

Swift has been on the tour/album/tour cycle for nearly ten years; ask if she sees winding down or taking a break and it taps into a fresh nerve.

"Oh, I think about the future a lot," she says. "That's when I start to get very confused. Essentially you can't make big decisions like 'When am I gonna take a break? When am I going to start to slow down? When is my hair going to start to go grey? Am I going to dye it or am I going to let it go grey? How am I going to handle wrinkles?

"You can't make those decisions until you're in that position. I'd like to think that in all aspects of my life I'll know the right time to leave the party. But you can't know when to leave the party until you're in the room."

SEE: Taylor Swift, Etihad Stadium, Melbourne, December 14. $85.50/$399.90, Ticketmaster

SEE Taylor Swift, Allianz Stadium, Sydney, December 4. $81.10/$399.90, Ticketek.

SEE: Taylor Swift, Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane, December 7. $85.35/$399.90, Ticketek.