Mine

Today's Taylor Swift song is the meaning of "Mine" from her "Speak Now" album.

I first heard this song before I became a Taylor Swift fan.  Yeah I remember hearing "Teardrops On My Guitar" on the radio and could sing along with it on the radio, but I wasn't a true fan.  I heard about this song because it was leaked, yes leaked.  So what did Taylor do?  She decided to release it early.  Genius.  And of course her plan worked.  Her third album "Speak Now" was hugely successful.

Who was this song about?

Taylor told Yahoo music in 2010, "This is a situation where a guy that I just barely knew put his arm around me by the water, and I saw the entire relationship flash before my eyes."

Who was this person?

It may be a little confusing because the hidden word in "Mine" is TOBY, but it is really about Cory Monteith.  (Toby Hemingway was in the music video for "Mine".  She couldn't have wrote it about him because she didn't know him until after she wrote the song when she was filming the music video.  She may have included his name because he was in the music video and/or she was interested in him)  Taylor and Cory hung out from January 2010 to about April 2010.  They even went bowling together with Selena Gomez.  They became good friends.  Unfortunately it didn't work out.

Taylor told Yahoo music, "After I wrote the song, things sort of fell apart, as things so often do. And I hadn't talked to him in a couple months. And the song came out, and that day, I got an e-mail from him. And I was like, 'Yes!' Because that one was sort of half-confession and half-prediction or projection of what I saw."

She was scared of him, scared of what could have been.

"It's a song that's about my tendency to run from love. Every really direct example of love I've had in front of me has ended in goodbye and in breakups and things like that, so I've developed this pattern of running away when it comes time to fall in love and stay in a relationship and this song is about finding an exception to that and finding the person that makes you believe in love and realize that it can work out."

This is what she imagined if she hadn't been scared. The song tells the story of a couple meeting. The boy  was in college, th girl. a waitress.  They fall in love, "You put your arm around me for the first time." They fight, "And I remember that fight, 2:30 a.m." They make up and he says, "I'll never leave you alone."  The music video further elaborates on this theme showing them moving in together, getting married, and having children.  One day Taylor I hope you find the person that doesn't make you afraid and you can have a great life with them.

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Mine".

Click here to see the music video for the song, "Mine". 

*I couldn't write this post without addressing Cory's death.  It was a sad day especially for Taylor.  I know how she feels.  When friends of mine have passed away it is very hard, very hard.  I hope that all his family and friends and Taylor have experienced comfort with his passing and remember all the good times they had with him.

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"Last Kiss"

Today's Taylor Swift song is "Last Kiss" from her Speak Now album.

This song tells the story of a great love and how the boy just left and she doesn't understand why.  How she never thought their last kiss would be their last kiss, "I never thought we'd have a last kiss/Never imagined we'd end like this."

Who is this song about?

The hint comes in the liner notes, FOREVER AND ALWAYS.  "Forever and Always" was the name of a song from Taylor's "Fearless" album and that song was about Joe Jonas.  "Last Kiss" is about Joe Jonas!

Taylor said on her website, "The song 'Last Kiss' is sort of like a letter to somebody. You say all of these desperate, hopeless feelings that you have after a breakup. Going through a breakup you feel all of these different things. You feel anger, and you feel confusion, and frustration. Then there is the absolute sadness. The sadness of losing this person, losing all the memories, and the hopes you had for the future. There are times when you have this moment of truth where you just admit to yourself that you miss all these things. When I was in one of those moments I wrote this song."

She treasured their love, was so excited for it, "I do recall now the smell of the rain/I ran off the plane/The beat of your heart/It jumps through your shirt/I can still feel your arms." She contrasts this with sitting "on the floor/Wearing your clothes/All that I know is/I don't know how to be something you miss/I never thought we'd have a last kiss/Never imagined we'd end like this/Your name, forever the name on my lips."  What she had with Joe Jonas was special, but he didn't treasure it like she did. She "never planned on you [Joe] changing your mind." He did change his mind and in the moment she wrote this song she missed him.  For the story of their breakup, check out "Forever and Always". 

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Last Kiss".

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Speak Now

Today's Taylor Swift song is the meaning of the song "Speak Now" from her Speak Now album.

This song inspired the name of her third album Speak Now. Taylor tells The Boot in November 2010 "I've always been fascinated by that moment, in a wedding because I think it's a metaphor for a lot of times in our life when we're just about to do something, and that's when we realize that we want it, and that's when we realize that we have to speak up."  This song is not about Taylor, but about one of her close friends.  Who is it?

Taylor Swift and Kellie Pickler

Her friend Kellie Pickler!  Taylor says in an exclusive E! News interview, "She [Kellie Pickler] one day comes in and tells me, "He's getting married." He had met this girl who was this horrible mean person who made him like completely stop talking to all of his friends, cut off his family, had him so completely isolated. And I just kind of randomly was like "Huh, are you going to speak now?"  She's like, 'What do you mean?' 'You know like storm the church? Speak now or forever hold your peace? I'll go with you, I'll play guitar."

"The song was inspired by the idea of bursting into your ex-boyfriend's wedding and saying 'Don't do it'-which was originally inspired by one of my friends and the fact that the guy she had been in love with since childhood was marrying this other girl," she explained to me. "And my first inclination was to say, 'Well, are you gonna speak now?' And then I started thinking about what I would do if I was still in love with someone who was marrying someone who they shouldn't be marrying. And so I wrote this song about exactly what my game plan would be..

The secret message in this song is, YOU ALWAYS REGRET WHAT YOU DON'T SAY.  You definitely regret what you don't say.  I love this album because it is all about speaking your mind and letting those around you know how you feel.

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Speak Now".

A bit of trivia, Taylor also wrote another song with Kellie, "The Best Days of Your Life."  Taylor plays the guitar in the music video and sings back up vocals.

Click here to see the music video. It tells a great story.

Kellie told AOL, "Taylor Swift and I actually wrote this song together while we were on tour with Brad Paisley. I had went through a really bad break-up a while back, so we wrote the song about the relationship that went sour. It's so funny, because Taylor always says that she has the 'Picture to Burn' song and Carrie Underwood has 'Before He Cheats' ... and now 'Best Days Of Your Life' - that's my kiss off song! He [my ex] has heard it and so has the person he's with now, so I guess it's bittersweet."

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Never Grow Up

Today's Taylor Swift song is "Never Grow Up" from her Speak Now album.

When I first heard this song I did not relate to it as well, but the more I hear it the more I understand.  It made me think of a little baby growing up and the mom not wanting the baby to grow up.  I think it is amazing Taylor has such great insight because she does not have kids, but she really sees how it is from the perspective of a parent.  

Who is this song about?

It is about Taylor! The secret hint is "MOVED OUT IN JULY".  She moved out from her parents house July 2010.

In the first verse she talks about a little baby, "Your little hand's wrapped around my finger".  The second verse, the child is 14, "You're in the car on the way to the movies/And you're mortified your mom's dropping you off/But don't make her drop you off around the block/Remember that she's getting older too".  She then starts talking about herself in the middle part of the song, "Take pictures in your mind of your childhood room/Memorize what it sounded like when your dad gets home".  She mentions her little brother, "remember the words said/And all your little brother's favorite songs".  And then mentions herself, "I just realized everything I have is someday gonna be gone".  The next verse she is "in my new apartment/In a big city, they just dropped me off/It's so much colder that I thought it would be/So I tuck myself in and turn my night light on".  She realizes it is not like home, it is scary, "Oh I don't wanna grow up, wish I'd never grown up/I could still be little/Oh I don't wanna grow up, wish I'd never grown up It could still be simple".  Then she brings the song away from herself again.  "Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple/Won't let nobody hurt you/Won't let no one break your heart."

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Never Grow Up".

Taylor said on her website, "'Never Grow Up' is a song about the fact that I don't quite know how I feel about growing up. It's tricky. Growing up happens without you knowing it. Growing up is such a crazy concept because a lot of times when you were younger you wish you were older. I look out into a crowd every night and I see a lot of girls that are my age and going through exactly the same things as I'm going through. Every once in a while I look down and I see a little girl who is seven or eight, and I wish I could tell her all of this. There she is becoming who she is going to be and forming her thoughts and dreams and opinions. I wrote this song for those little girls."

What is her home like? 

Taylor told Rolling stone, "It's going to be my fantasy world. The ceiling of my living room is painted like the night sky. There's a pond in the living room ... The pond is a moat around the fireplace and may possibly have koi fish in it. You step on a stepping stone in the pond in order to get on a spiral staircase, which takes you up to the human-sized bird cage observatory. They're delivering a human-size birdcage, which I'll put a brass telescope in."

Rolling Stone was invited into her apartment in 2012 and described it in an article on her. "There is a pond, complete with koi fish, in the middle of Swift's astonishing, many-colored Nashville condo. It sits beneath a wrought-metal spiral staircase leading to a human-size birdcage that faces floor-to-ceiling windows, with a view stretching to the green mountains beyond downtown. ('It's the most comfortable place in the world,' she says of the wooden cage, built from a sketch she made. 'It's just, like, pillows and comfiness.')

Under the previous owner, this was an ultramodern bachelor pad. Over 18 months of remodeling, Swift gave the condo a sex change and a heavy dose of well-funded OCD whimsy. The ceiling is arranged in multiple motifs – billowing curtains here, a painted indigo night sky there. In one corner, under hanging crystalline stars, sits a giant bunny made of moss. He's wearing a hat. 'It's a whole Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland structure here,' she says, welcoming me the next morning. 'It's what the inside of my brain looks like, essentially.' "

She told Jay Leno November 23, 2010 all about her new life, living on her own.

"I moved in the beginning of the summer. I've been working on this condo in Nasvhille about a year, doing construction. When I walked in, it was really trendy, and I eventually fell in love with it. But the inside of it was like a dude's bachelor ... and I was like, we need to change this and make it cozy and pretty and mismatched! So we ripped out everything [and] put in like barn, hardwood floors, old reclaimed brick ... And the kitchen! Oh my God, I love my kitchen! It's got mismatched colored cabinets and mismatched knobs on cabinets and mismatched chairs ... but it's very girly, and they're well-matched mismatched! There's lots of pillows everywhere."

"I love cooking. It's one of my favorite things to do. And now I have my own kitchen -- so now I can! And I make my bed everyday! [laughs] I didn't used to do that, back when I lived at home. My mom comes over now, and she'll walk in and be like, 'Wow ... so you do this now? You didn't do this before, but you do this now. Great.' [laughs]"

"Because that would be dude-like ... so I was contemplating not having any TVs in my place at all. I was like, do I really need a TV? And then at the end, I realized I did. But I put it in this contraption that I found online, where you can have it hidden, and then have it come up when you want to see it. Because it's a very antique kind of apartment, so I thought, I can't have a big TV mounted on the wall! It would ruin everything. So I had to hide it ...and you push a button, so it comes up! Sometimes when I'm alone, I'll push up, down ... up, down! [laughs] You can do that when you're alone-- and nobody's gonna judge you! [laughs]"

Here's a peek inside her house.

It is scary to grow up and move out on your own.  I was 18 when I moved out and my aunt dropped me off at school.  It was for college.  I wondered how I would fit in, how it would be.  It ended up being one of the best experiences of my life.  Taylor's been moved out for a while now and I think she is enjoying it, even if it does come with heartbreak and loneliness sometimes, that's part of growing up.

*On a side note, I have now been to one of her houses, in NYC.  It was a amazing and she was a perfect host. Taylor thanks for being so nice and opening your homes to fans!

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Better Than Revenge

Today's Taylor Swift song is the meaning of "Better Than Revenge" from her "Speak Now" album.

Taylor Swift, courtesy of taylorswift.com

This is a great revenge song.  What is worse than your boyfriend breaking up with you?  Your boyfriend breaking up with you because he's dating another girl!

Who is this song about?

Taylor tells the story in the song. "The story starts when it was hot and it was summer and.../I had it all, I had him right where I wanted him/She came along, got him alone and let's hear the applause/She took him faster than you could say 'sabotage' ".  Taylor started dating Joe Jonas in July 2008, but was in for a surprise   Camilla Belle unexpectedly pulled Joe Jonas out from under Taylor Swift's nose. They met when he was filming his music video for "Lovebug".  She "never saw it coming, wouldn't have suspected it/I underestimated just who I was dealing with". He broke up with her in October 2008 and started dating Camilla.  Joe broke it off with Taylor and she was confused and heartbroken, see the song "Forever and Always".

Joe Jonas and Camilla Belle

But Taylor has something to say to Ms Camilla Belle, "go stand in the corner and think about what you did". And to everyone else, "She's not a saint/And she's not what you think/She's an actress, whoa", "Stealing other people's toys/On the playground won't/Make you many friends", "Or pushing people down it gets you where you wanna go."  She is letting her know (and the whole world, ie the revenge part) she did not appreciate her for stealing him and is helping her learn her lesson.  "They wouldn't teach you that in prep school so it's up to me...There is nothing I do better than revenge"

It didn't last for Camilla and Joe, what does when you start it like that?  They broke up in July 2009.

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Better Than Revenge".

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Innocent

Today's Taylor Swift song is the meaning of "Innocent" from her "Speak Now" album.

Taylor performed this song for the first time at the 2010 VMA's, September 12th.  She chose to perform this song because of a specific event that took place at the 2009 VMA's.

Taylor performing at the 2010 VMA's, 9/12/2010

  Click here for video of the live performance to "Innocent".

What happened at the 2009 VMA's?

Taylor Swift had just won Best Female Video for "You Belong To Me".  She was delivering her acceptance speech when Kanye West came onstage, stole the microphone and said, "Yo, Taylor, I'm really happy for you and I'mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!"  It was a shock to everyone there including Beyoncé who let Taylor come back up on stage when she won Video of the Year.  President Obama even weighed in on the controversy.

Kanye West and Taylor Swift, 2009 VMA's, September 13, 2009

Taylor told The View September 15, 2009, "Well, I think my overall thought process was something like, 'Wow, I can't believe I won, this is awesome, don't trip and fall, I'm gonna get to thank the fans, this is so cool. 'Oh, Kanye West is here. Cool haircut. What are you doing there?' And then, 'Ouch.' And then, 'I guess I'm not gonna get to thank the fans.' You know, I'm not gonna say that I wasn't rattled by it. But I had to perform live five minutes later, so I had to get myself back to the place where I could perform."

Kanye did feel bad for what happened that night, but I don't know if it was more over the bad press he was getting or he really felt sorry.  In a series of Twitter messages Kanye said, "She deserves the apology more than anyone... Who am I to run on stage? I would never ever again in a million years do that. Sorry to let you down. It is distasteful to cut people off as a general rule. What's the point of dressing tastefully if I'm going to act the complete opposite? Yes I was that guy. A 32 year old child. When I woke up from the crazy nightmare I looked in the mirror and said GROW UP KANYE ... I take the responsibility for my actions. Beyonce didn't need that. MTV didn't need that and Taylor and her family friends and fans definitely didn't want or need that."

So what did Taylor do? She wrote a song. In the song "Innocent" she compares making mistakes in childhood versus making mistakes when you are older. She let Kanye know that she accepted his apology and that grown ups can make mistakes too.  "It's okay, life is a tough crowd/32, and still growin' up now/Who you are is not what you did./You're still an innocent."  

Click here for lyrics to the song, "Innocent".

Taylor told Access Hollywood "The decision to perform 'Innocent' on the VMA's was very inline with what the album is about. The album is called Speak Now, it's about saying, saying what you need to say at the moment that you need to say it.  I had a bunch of different options going into the VMA's.  I could have sung a different song, I could've not gone, I could've done a bunch of different things, but I felt like going to the VMA's and singing a song about how I had felt, it seemed like the right call if I'm going to live my life in the way that I wrote that album."

I think that Kanye is a still a jerk for what he did, but kudos to Taylor for taking the higher road and forgiving him.

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The Story of Us

Today's Taylor Swift song is "The Story of Us" from her "Speak Now" album.

I can really relate to this song.  I have definitely fallen hard for someone and thought there was going to be this huge romantic story of "How we met and the sparks flew instantly", but it just seemed to fizzle. I am usually forced to see them again and it is super awkward.  I stand there "alone in a crowded room and/nervously pulling at my clothes and trying to look busy" while they do their "best to avoid me".   You don't know if you should say something or wait for him to say something.  That is the way Taylor feels in this song.  She knows "The battle's in your hands now/But I would lay my armor down/If you said you'd rather love than fight."

Click here for lyrics to the song, "The Story of Us."

Who is the guy that made Taylor feel so alone?

"The Story of Us" album art, courtesy of taylorswift.com

Taylor told Brian Mansfield of USA Today "The Story of Us is about running into someone I had been in a relationship with at an awards show, and we were seated a few seats away from each other. I just wanted to say to him, 'Is this killing you? Because it's killing me.' But I didn't. Because I couldn't. Because we both had these silent shields up.

I went home and I sat there at the kitchen table and I said to my mom, 'I felt like I was standing alone in a crowded room.' Then I got up and ran into my bedroom, as she's seen me do many times. And she probably assumed I had come up with a line in the song. And I had. And that was actually the last song I wrote on the album, and after I finished that one, I knew I was done."

What was the awards show.  Taylor revels it in her hidden lyrics message, "CMT AWARDS".  And who was there at the June 9, 2010 awards show?  John Mayer! 

He didn't end things properly with Taylor, he probably just quit calling or responding to her, like so many guys do when they are not interested in a girl.  Why can't they just say something and be polite and let the girl know how they feel instead of leading them on and not letting them know "page you're on"?

Click here for the music video to the song, "The Story of Us".

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