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Taylor Swift · S4 E4
Mean
The critics, the SNL backlash, the live performance at the Grammys — and how she builds armor out of the thing that hurt her.
On February 12, 2012, Taylor Swift walks onto the Grammy stage carrying a banjo and a grudge. The same critics who said she couldn't sing are about to watch her win two trophies for the song she wrote about them.
"Shake It Off" -- Taylor Swift, official music video (2014). Taylor tries on different identities, fails at all of them, and decides the only move is to keep dancing. It is the spiritual sequel to "Mean": both songs are about refusing to let other people's opinions define you. "Mean" is the wound. "Shake It Off" is what it looks like five years later, when the wound has become armor.
Shake It Off
"Shake It Off" is produced by Max Martin, Shellback, and Taylor Swift, and it is designed to be the simplest song on 1989. The horn section, the cheerleader chant, the four-on-the-floor beat: everything in the arrangement is meant to feel immediate and instinctive, like a reflex. Listen for the spoken-word bridge. Taylor drops the melody entirely and talks, listing the things people say about her. In "Mean," she sings about the critic. In "Shake It Off," she quotes the critics and literally talks over them. The progression from singing about pain to talking over it is five years of growth compressed into eight bars.
The Backlash
Taylor's duet with Stevie Nicks at the 2010 Grammys is widely panned for pitch problems. Multiple publications call it one of the worst vocal performances of the awards season. An influential music industry blogger writes a public open letter calling her "a bad singer." The criticism is the first time the public conversation turns on Taylor Swift.
TAP TO REVEAL: Who is the specific critic Taylor wrote "Mean" about?
Speak Now -- Taylor Swift (Speak Now, 2010)
The title track about crashing a wedding to say the thing you should have said sooner. On an album full of personal confessions, this one is pure fiction: a miniature movie about courage and terrible timing. It connects to "Mean" because both songs are about the same impulse. There are moments when you have to open your mouth and say what nobody else will, even when the room does not want to hear it.
Speak Now, Taylor Swift (2010)
Read the lyrics while you listen. Taylor paints every detail of the wedding scene so vividly that you can picture the dress, the curtains, and the exact moment she decides to stand up and say something.
What is uniquely ironic about one of the Grammy categories "Mean" won in 2012?
The critics are silenced. But at a party in New York, Taylor meets someone across the room and writes a song about it that takes three years to reach its intended audience. Next: "Enchanted," and the mystery of Adam Young.
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