Taylor Swift used her Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame induction this week to good-naturedly settle an old score with Brad Paisley, joking on stage that the two had been "estranged" since 2007 over a prank involving thousands of live crickets.

Paisley inducted Swift at the October 26 ceremony, prompting her to recall how, during the 2007 Bonfires & Amplifiers Tour — when Swift was the opening act on Paisley's tour — he filled her entire tour bus with live crickets. Swift told the crowd the noise kept her awake for months afterward.

A tour prank war, settled with a laugh

"For months I couldn't sleep," Swift said, recalling the aftermath, adding that she'd seriously considered buying a pet lizard just to deal with the infestation. Reports from the ceremony described the crowd erupting as she delivered the line, with Paisley laughing along from the audience.

ALL NIGHT I CONSIDERED BUYING A PET LIZARD TO ERADICATE THE PROBLEM.

The cricket stunt wasn't a one-way street. Swift and her fellow opening acts on that tour, Kellie Pickler and Jack Ingram, got their own payback, staging a mock exterminator skit — complete with a fake spray canister — during Paisley's performance of his own single "Ticks," turning his bug-themed hit back on him in front of the crowd.

Despite the "estranged" framing, Swift's remarks were entirely affectionate. The Hall of Fame honor recognizes Swift's songwriting catalog, and having Paisley — a fellow Nashville mainstay and one of her earliest tour mentors — handle the induction was itself a nod to how far back their relationship goes, feud or no feud.

Paisley has a long track record of tour pranks on younger acts; the crickets were far from his only stunt over the years. For Swift, now one of the biggest acts in music history, the callback offered a rare, lighthearted glimpse back at her earliest days on the road, opening shows for the artist who'd go on to welcome her into country music's most prestigious songwriting institution nearly two decades later.