Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 470,956 at the 2012 Dept. of Finance Report, it is the sixth-largest city in California. Sacramento is the core cultural and economic center of the Sacramento metropolitan area which includes seven counties; with an estimated population of 2,527,123. Its metropolitan area is the fourth largest in California after the Greater Los Angeles Area, San Francisco Bay Area, and the San Diego metropolitan area as well as the 22nd largest in the United States. A city attaining global status, Sacramento was cited by Time magazine as America's most ethnically and racially integrated city in 2002.

Sacramento became a city through the efforts of the Swiss immigrant John Sutter, Sr., his son John Sutter, Jr., and James W. Marshall. Sacramento grew quickly thanks to the protection of Sutter's Fort, which was established by Sutter in 1839. During the California Gold Rush, Sacramento was a major distribution point, a commercial and agricultural center, and a terminus for wagon trains, stagecoaches, riverboats, the telegraph, the Pony Express, and the First Transcontinental Railroad.

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter and occasional actress. Raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, Swift moved to Nashville, Tennessee at the age of fourteen to pursue a career in country music. She signed to the independent label Big Machine Records and became the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house. The release of Swift's self-titled debut album in 2006 established her as a country music star. "Our Song", her third single, made her the youngest sole writer and singer of a number one song on the country chart. She received a Best New Artist nomination at the 50th Grammy Awards.

Swift's second album, Fearless, was released in late 2008. Buoyed by the chart success of the singles "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me", Fearless attracted a crossover audience and became the top-selling album of 2009. The record won four Grammy Awards, with Swift becoming the youngest ever Album of the Year winner. Fearless also received Album of the Year plaudits at the American Music Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards and Country Music Association Awards, making it the most awarded album in country music history. In 2010, Swift released her third album, Speak Now, which sold over one million copies in its first week. She then embarked on the 111-date Speak Now World Tour, which was attended by over 1.6 million fans and has become one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time. The album's third single, "Mean", won two Grammy Awards for Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance. Swift is currently recording her fourth studio album, due for release in the fall of 2012.

Gary Lightbody (born 15 June 1976) is a Northern Irish musician and songwriter best known as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the alternative rock band Snow Patrol.

Lightbody, who was born in Bangor, Northern Ireland, attended Rockport School and Campbell College as a youngster. He left home for Scotland in 1994 to study English literature and English language at the University of Dundee.

Growing up, he listened to artists like Super Furry Animals, Quincy Jones, Kool & the Gang and Michael Jackson. He subsequently got into hard rock bands AC/DC and KISS as a teen, and then alternative acts like Sebadoh, Mudhoney, Pixies and Pavement. Since a child, he dreamed of becoming "the biggest rock star on the planet" like Bono, but was never "cool".

He is a fan of the X-Men and particularly Wolverine, and owns a "stack" of comics related to them. He bought several comics as a kid and has some that he has never opened, hoping they would become rare collectibles someday. In a later interview, he light-heartedly mentioned that they could earn him a small pension someday. He considers himself a "comics freak".