Taylor Swift, “Mean”

“Mean” is kind of like Taylor Swift’s version of Bob Dylan’s “Positively 4th Street.” In rock and roll, it’s what’s become known as a kiss-off song.

While Dylan’s ire seems to be aimed specifically at a lover and perhaps more generally at the New York purist folk scene, Swift says her song is directed at “one guy” who continually has tried to bring her down.

“When you do what I do,” says Swift, “which is you put yourself out there for a lot of people to say whatever they want, there are a million different opinions from a million different people. 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. There’s constructive criticism, there’s professional criticism and then there’s just being mean. And there’s a line that you cross when you just start to attack everything about a person. And 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. 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.”

Lyrically, these types of songs usually find their best, most direct expression through conversational vernacular. Swift: “you don’t know what you don’t know”; Dylan: “you say I let you down, you know it’s not like that.”

Just as with Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” and “Positively 4th Street,” as the writer Andy Gill observed, the songs end up being a bit of a one-sided argument. I guess that’s just what happens if you cross a songwriter, who’s always gets the last laugh.

Watch the video for “Mean” on Vevo.

“Mean”

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

Someday I’ll be living in a big old city
And all you’re ever gonna be is mean
Someday I’ll be big enough so you can’t hit me
And all you’re ever gonna be is mean

Why you gotta be so mean?

You, with your switching sides and your walk-by lies and your humiliation
You, have pointed out my flaws again as if I don’t already see them
I’ll walk with my head down trying to block you out ’cause I’ll never impress you
I just wanna feel okay again

I’ll bet you got pushed around, somebody made you cold
But the cycle ends right now ’cause you can’t lead me down that road
And you don’t know what you don’t know

Someday I’ll be living in a big old city
And all you’re ever gonna be is mean
Someday I’ll be big enough so you can’t hit me
And all you’re ever gonna be is mean

Why you gotta be so mean?

And I can see you years from now in a bar, talking over a football game
With that same big loud opinion but nobody’s listening
Washed up and ranting about the same old bitter things
Drunk and grumbling on about how I can’t sing

But all you are is mean
All you are is mean and a liar and pathetic and alone in life
And mean, and mean, and mean, and mean

But 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

Why you gotta be so mean?

Someday, I’ll be, living in a big old city
(Why you gotta be so mean?)
And all you’re ever gonna be is mean
(Why you gotta be so mean?)
Someday, I’ll be big enough so you can’t hit me
(Why you gotta be so mean?)
And all you’re ever gonna be is mean

Why you gotta be so mean?

Written by Taylor Swift