Taylor Swift, ‘Mean’ – Lyrics Uncovered

Taylor Swift's recent single, 'Mean,' is one of the 14 songs on her latest album, 'Speak Now,' which the beautiful songstress wrote on her own. The song was written as a fun way to call out all of Swift's critics who are just that thing: mean.

"When you do what I do, you put yourself out there for a lot of people to say whatever they want about it [you]," Swift says, according to her label, Big Machine Records. "There are a million different opinions from a million different people."

"You, with your words like knives and swords and weapons that you use against me / You have knocked me off my feet again got me feeling like I'm nothing / You, with your voice like nails on a chalkboard / Calling me out when I'm wounded / You, pickin' on the weaker man / Well, you can take me down with just one single blow / But you don't know what you don't know," Swift sings in the song's opening lyrics.

"I get it that not everyone is going to like what you do, and I get that no matter what, you’re going to be criticized for something, but I also get that there are different ways to criticize someone," she explains. "There’s constructive criticism, there’s professional criticism and then there’s just being mean. There’s a line that you cross when you just start to attack everything about a person."

In the lyrics of the song's chorus, Swift holds her head high: "Someday I'll be living in a big old city / And all you're ever gonna be is mean / Yeah, someday, I'll be big enough so you can't hit me / And all you're ever gonna be is mean."

"There’s one guy -- man -- who just crossed the line over and over again of just being mean and just
saying things that would ruin my day," Swift says, pin-pointing the inspiration of the tune. "This happens no matter what you do, no matter how old you are, no matter what your job is, no matter what your place is in life, there’s always going to be someone who’s just mean to you. And dealing with that is all that you can control."

Listen to Taylor Swift's 'Mean'