Taylor Swift: Being human is hard

Taylor Swift finds life hard.

The '22' hitmaker is known for penning songs based on her own heartbreak - most recently her short-lived relationship with teen pin-up Harry Styles - and has now revealed she finds the process emotionally draining because she has so many intense feelings.

Speaking to ELLE magazine's new Women in Music issue, Taylor lamented: 'All these emotions, everything that's said and all your experience, that's what inspires the first flicker of a song. It's hard being a human being.'

Fellow singer Alicia Keys also chatted to the May edition of the US magazine and revealed her own experience of writing music is a lot more self-confident, and she isn't afraid to show her true colours on her new album 'Girl on Fire'.

Alicia said: 'There's not one thing about 'Girl on Fire' that's like any of my others. I'm in a totally new state of mind ...

'This album is like saying I am who I am, not who you want me to be.'

Taylor, 23, has been very vocal in the past about the perils of songwriting and the subtle gradient of emotions she experiences when her relationships go wrong.

She said: 'I break down emotions into like 50 million categories. There's the missing-him kind of sadness. There's the frustrated-and-confused, don't-know-why-it-ended kind of sadness, there's the sadness tinged with anger ... There's the I know we can't be together but I miss you right now, there's the sadness tinged with anger, there's the sadness that has guilt with it, there's the sadness that has a little bit of hope that he'll come back.

'That's why emotions are so beautiful to write about because they all sound so different to me.'