"Crawling" is a song by American rock band Linkin Park. It was released in 2001 as the second single from their debut album, Hybrid Theory. In 2002, it won a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance.
"Crawling" is one of the few songs on Hybrid Theory to not prominently feature Mike Shinoda's rapped lyrics. The intro to "Crawling" has been remixed in live versions over the years. Since 2008's Projekt Revolution, Mike Shinoda has rapped the first verse of "Hands Held High" over the intro to Reanimation version of "Crawling", titled "Krwlng" (featuring Staind frontman Aaron Lewis).
In 2009, Shinoda rapped two verses of "Hands Held High" over the intro of "Crawling", whose first verse started with an a cappella or a bassline before the Reanimation intro started, in which Shinoda raps the second verse. Singer Chester Bennington remarked that "Crawling" was the most difficult Linkin Park song to sing live, stating "Crawling has caused me the most trouble live more than any other song." Bennington also commented on the meaning of "Crawling" by stating it was inspired by his own battles with substance abuse. "Crawling is about feeling like I had no control over myself in terms of drugs and alcohol, hence the line "These wounds they will not heal…". The song is recorded in the key of C♯ minor.
This song manifests that nasty feeling that something is crawling under your skin. Much of the lyric delivered by Chester Bennington deals with the side effects of taking methamphetamines - a drug he used throughout his teens. The anxiety, hallucinations and a feeling of things crawling under his skin. The song, though, can apply to anyone feeling uncomfortable and helpless.
In the video, the girl (played by Katelyn Rosaasen) is physically abused by her father. At the beginning, we can see all her bruises. Many of the lyrics demonstrate how hard it is to break the cycle of abuse ("These wounds, they will not heal" and "It's haunting, how I can't seem to find myself again, my walls are closing in"), and how self-confidence is crushed. The blue crystal background closes in on her at the beginning of the first chorus - this shows an emotional shell that she has built around her. The thick make-up is like a mask, trying to hide what's going on inside. The septum ring is designed to link with Chester's lip ring. When the girl walks away from her boyfriend, it's because she's too scared to get close to people. This is also true for the high school bathroom scene. When Chester sings, "Against my will I stand beside my own reflection," he and Katelyn are looking at each other. She looks like she wants to get out of the shell she's in. She also sees painful memories from her past in the crystal. When the second chorus starts, the crystal begins to break and chunks of it are flying about - this is her shell falling down. It represents her father's departure, as does her smiling at the end with the roses in the vase. She's not wearing the thick make-up because she doesn't feel like she needs the protection of a mask - she's got nothing to hide from.
Read more for Biography of Chester Bennington
This won a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance. At the time, Shinoda wasn't too clear on what the award meant, thinking it was akin to best rock song. Later, he understood it referred to the studio performance, which, he told Kerrang in 2020, was entirely due to Bennington's vocals. "His vocal in that song, it was even hard for him to do some nights on tour, and it's impossible for anybody else to sing it that well," he said. "Every other cover of it is a mere shadow of the Chester performance of the song."
This was the second single off Hybrid Theory, the best selling album of 2001 in the US.
The video was nominated for Best Rock video on MTV's Video Music Awards. It lost to Limp Bizkit's "Rollin."
Chester Bennington told Rolling Stone magazine 2002: "The song is about taking responsibility for your actions. I don't say 'you' at any point. It's about how I'm the reason that I feel this way. There's something inside me that pulls me down."
There is a remixed version of this song on Reanimation, their 2002 CD which contained remixes of the songs from Hybrid Theory and a couple of new songs. The remix features Staind's Aaron Lewis on vocals.
Read more Songfacts Leave Out All The Rest
In the CD booklet, the lyrics "These wounds, they will not heal" were incorrectly written as "Consuming all I feel."
Chester Bennington claimed it was hard to perform this song live due to his own personal experience similar to the problems in the song. He felt as though his past drug addiction, to crystal meth and other hard drugs such as cocaine, was literally under his skin. In an interview he said: "'Crawling' has caused me the most trouble live more than any other song. 'Crawling' is about feeling like I had no control over myself in terms of drugs and alcohol." He also called it "the most literal song lyrically I'd ever written for Linkin Park."
Chris Cornell, who was one of the acts on Linkin Park's Projekt Revolution festival in 2008, joined the band to perform this song throughout the tour. Cornell and Chester Bennington were good friends; in 2017, they both died from suicide two months apart.
Bennington explained in a 2001 interview how the song relates to self-esteem issues: "In a song like 'Crawling,' we are talking about self-consciousness or the lack of self-confidence. That's a big part of that song because when you get into those situations with a lot of people looking at you, you find faults in yourself and you get nervous and want to change them. Things like that are really charged topics to be talking about, and when we started to write lyrics we found ourselves energized and interested in writing these songs and going after them with a lot of intensity. Sitting in front of a computer thinking about the crap you did before you go to bed, that you thought you could have done better – that will freak you out sometimes."
Brad Delson, the band's lead guitarist, said this song is an example of how Bennington's vocal talent helped Linkin' Park improve their songwriting. He told Madison.com: "What happened when Chester joined the group, we moved from 'Hey, these are the kind of singing parts we want,' to 'Wow, these are singing parts that we never even thought of,' because his range and versatility are such that, like 'Crawling,' who would think to write that melody? You couldn't because there are very few people in the world that could probably sing that. So that's an example of when I say he really expanded our writing ability in the sense that he has such a range vocally. He really was kind of the final piece of the puzzle, and he brings vocal talent that, when we were looking for a second vocalist, we didn't see anything close to his talent in anybody else."
Read more: Songfacts Lost by Linkin Park
According to Mike Shinoda, the chorus lyric, "Fear is how I fall," came from producer Don Gilmore mishearing the actual line, "Fear is powerful." Shinoda told Kerrang in 2020: "He just heard it wrong, and he heard a really great line."
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"Zombie" is a protest song by Irish alternative rock band the Cranberries. It was written by the lead singer, Dolores O'Riordan, about the young victims of a bombing in Warrington, England, during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The song was released on 19 September 1994 by Island Records as the lead single from the Cranberries' second studio album, No Need to Argue (1994). Critics have described "Zombie" as "a masterpiece of alternative rock", with grunge-style distorted guitar and shouted vocals uncharacteristic of the band's other work.
While Island Records feared releasing a politically charged song as a single, "Zombie" reached No. 1 on the charts of Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, and Iceland. The song was ineligible for the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, but it reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Alternative Airplay chart. Listeners of the Australian radio station Triple J voted it No. 1 on the 1994 Triple J Hottest 100 chart, and it won the Best Song Award at the 1995 MTV Europe Music Awards. The music video was directed by Samuel Bayer, and featured O'Riordan singing while painted gold, and footage of war-torn Belfast. In April 2020, it became the first song by an Irish group to surpass one billion views on YouTube.
This was inspired by the IRA bombing in Warrington, Cheshire, England on March 20, 1993. Two children, Jonathan Ball and Tim Parry, were killed. The IRA (Irish Republican Army) is a militant group that was determined to remove British troops from Northern Ireland.
Lead singer Dolores O'Riordan claimed that "Zombie" speaks about "the Irish fight for independence that seems to last forever." The lyrics even say, "It's the same old theme since 1916."
Like the responsive works of Yeats, Heaney and U2, the Cranberries claim they wrote "Zombie" to be a "song for peace, peace among England and Ireland."
This song takes the unassailable position that killing young children is tragic, but in venturing into the political fray, it created a great deal of controversy. This didn't surprise O'Riordan. "I knew that would be the angle of the song, because it was controversial," she told Songfacts. "But, I suppose I was kind of taken aback with the success of the song. I didn't know it was going to be that successful."
The video was shot by Samuel Bayer, who flew to Belfast shortly before the ceasefire to get footage of the area - those are real British soldiers and local children. Bayer intercut these scenes with striking images of Dolores O'Riordan, standing by a cross and covered in gold paint, as similarly gilded children look on. Bayer, who began as a painter, was wildly creative in his videos when given free rein. His best-known work is Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
Getting painted for the video was O'Riordan's idea. Explaining the symbolism, she told us, "It was to make it magnificent in a way, at the cross. It was metaphoric for all the pain that was being caused, and it was slightly religious as well."
On August 31, 1994, just a few weeks after this song was released, the IRA declared a ceasefire after 25 years of conflict, leading some critics of The Cranberries to wonder if the IRA was willing to call a truce to make sure the group didn't release any more songs about them.
The first Cranberries album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, Why Can't We?, was written and recorded in Ireland over a span of a few years. After that album was released in 1993, they went on a lengthy tour and began writing songs for their second album, No Need To Argue. "Zombie" was written while they were touring England that year.
The lead single from the album, it marked a stark departure in both sound and meaning, taking an aggressive political turn away from songs like "Linger" and "Dreams." In a Songfacts interview with Dolores O'Riordan, she said, "On the road, writing things became more alive. I think that's why 'Zombie' emerged. The first album was more tame and more reserved, and then we started to rock out a bit more. So, we started to write more rock and roll songs."
The Cranberries performed this at Woodstock '94 a month before the single was released.
In America, the song wasn't released as a single, a tactic designed to sell more albums. Promotional copies were issued to radio stations and MTV gave the video plenty of spins, so the song got lots of exposure, helping No Need To Argue sell over 7 million copies in the US. Since it wasn't sold as a single, "Zombie" was ineligible for the Billboard Hot 100 chart, but it did make #22 on the Airplay chart.
The Cranberries performed this on Saturday Night Live on February 25, 1995.
The metal band Bad Wolves released a cover of this song on January 19, 2018. The band claimed that Dolores O'Riordan was scheduled to record vocals on the track the day she died four days earlier.
This version changes a few lyrics, mentioning drones among the devices for killing, and altering the line, "It's the same old theme since 1916" to "It's the same old theme in 2018."
"She was really excited about that because the nations may have changed but we're still fighting the same battles today," lead singer Tommy Vext said. "Humanity is still fighting to assert itself despite all the conflicts."
The Cranberries noted that "Zombie" drew strong responses from audiences. After O'Riordan's death in 2018, it became an Irish stadium anthem, first for the teams from the Cranberries' hometown of Limerick, and later for the Ireland national rugby union team starting in the 2023 Rugby World Cup. It was also the walkout music for mixed martial artist Jung Chan-sung, known as ‘The Korean Zombie’, throughout his time in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The band recorded acoustic, stripped-down versions on MTV Unplugged and the 2017 album Something Else. "Zombie" has been covered by numerous artists; O'Riordan had planned to contribute vocals to a version by the American band Bad Wolves, which was released days after her death.
A video, directed by Wayne Isham, was released with an actress re-creating O'Riordan's gold-plated look from the original.
When Dolores O'Riordan died on the day she was scheduled to record her vocals for the Bad Wolves cover, there was a huge behind-the-scenes debate involving the metal band's manager and record label over whether or not they should still release the track.
"We almost shelved the song," frontman Tommy Vext told Billboard. "We didn't know what to do with it."
The group decided the best way forward was to release the cover, and donate their proceeds to O'Riordan's three children. "That was kind of how we tried to make a positive situation out of such a tragic one," Vext said.
The cover was released the same week of O'Riordan's death, and after a slow start became a huge success, giving Bad Wolves their first Hot 100 entry.
When the "Zombie" video passed 1 billion views on YouTube in April 2020, The Cranberries became the first Irish band to hit the milestone.
In The Office episode "The Return" (2007), Andy (Ed Helms) sings the chorus repeatedly to annoy his co-workers.
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Adele, the English singer-songwriter, recorded the song "Someone like You" for her second studio album, 21 (2011). Co-written and produced by Adele and Dan Wilson, it serves as the album's second single and final track. The lyrics of the song reflect Adele's personal experience of a broken relationship and her journey towards acceptance. XL Recordings released the song as a single on 24 January 2011 in the United Kingdom, coinciding with the album's release, and on 9 August 2011 in the United States. Accompanied solely by a piano, played by co-writer Dan Wilson, Adele's vocals convey the emotions surrounding the end of her relationship with her former partner.
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This song is about getting over an ex, hoping to find another who can bring back those feelings that made it so special.
At a 2017 concert in Brisbane, Adele talked about the feeling that inspired this song. "I was trying to remember how it was I felt at the beginning of a relationship," she said. "Because as bad as a break up can be, as bitter and horrible and messy as it can be, that feeling when you first fall for someone is the best feeling on earth, and I am addicted to that feeling."
Adele took up with her partner Simon Konecki not long after she wrote the song - the couple had a child in 2012. "Obviously I can't go through with those feelings because I'm married now," Adele added. "I've found my next person."
Adele had boundless resources at her disposal, but all this song needed was two people, two days, and a studio with a grand piano. She wrote and recorded it at Harmony Studios in Los Angeles with Dan Wilson of the band Semisonic, whose co-writing credits include "Not Ready To Make Nice" with Dixie Chicks and "Hidden Away" with Josh Groban. The demo they recorded at the end of their second day (with Wilson on piano) ended up being so good that Adele decided to use it as the actual recording. She tried recording it with a band and a full orchestra, but couldn't beat that demo.
In a Songfacts interview with Dan Wilson, he said: "I had a small case of demo-itis about the version that Adele and I had done. But I honestly thought about my version with Adele as a demo and I never entertained the idea that it was going to be on the record. I was just hoping for the best possible more-fleshed-out version."
What's "demo-itis"? Wilson defines it as, "The general fact that you're always going to like the first version of a song you hear best."
Adele and Dan Wilson didn't know each other when they got together to write this song - it was the album's co-producer Rick Rubin who paired them up. She copped to knowing little about his work, but told him her mum was a big fan. (When Wilson wrote a song with Carol King - "One True Love" - on the 2001 Semisonic album All About Chemistry - he told her his mom was a big fan. "Thank you for making me feel old," she replied.) Before they got down to business, Wilson and Adele spent about 45 minutes getting to know each other and watching YouTube videos of rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson, which got them out of the present and into a mindset of a different era when songs were more enduring.
Adele told The Sun: "It's simple - just letting go. It makes me really upset. It's my most articulate song. It's just to the point, it's not trying to be clever, I think that's why I like it so much, because it's just so honest, no glitter on it."
This understated song was used at the closing track to the 21 album, and also released as the second single from the set, following "Rolling In The Deep."
Adele premiered this song on November 16, 2010 on Later Live with Jools Holland. It took off from there, reaching an audience that welcomed a song without synthesizers, Auto-Tune, or any kind of production sheen.
Most of 21's lyrics refer to Adele working through the ending of a relationship. In this song, she sings:
I heard that you're settled down
That you found a girl and you're married now
I heard that your dreams came true
Guess she gave you things I wouldn't give to you
"We didn't try to make it open-ended so it could apply to anybody," said Wilson to Billboard magazine. "We tried to make it as personal as possible."
The songs on 21 come from a deep place. "The experience of writing this record was quite exhausting, because I would go from being a bitch to being completely on my knees," she said in an interview with UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph. "It was like the stages of my recovery. I was trying to explain to myself why the relationship broke down, to the point that I actually forgot about people hearing it.
When I did 'Someone Like You' live on Jools Holland, I got so upset wondering and hoping and wishing that my ex would be watching it, I went back to my dressing room and sobbed. Making a record is like standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square naked, you let everyone see your good bits and bad bits. I don't know what possesses me to do that, but I'm not good at anything else."
Read more: Songfacts Hello by Adele
The line, "I wish nothing but the best for you, too" was originally just "I wish nothing but the best for you." Adele added the extra word during the second songwriting session.
That extra word adds another layer of meaning to the song, as we now know that Adele's ex used that line on her, and now she's returning it back at him.
When songwriters record a demo, it often takes weeks before they get feedback from the record label and producer. The verdict on this one came in the next day: Everyone loved it, including Rick Rubin, whose opinion carries a lot of weight.
After writing a number of songs dissing her former lover, Adele portrays her ex in a more positive way on this track. "Well, I wrote that song because I was exhausted from being such a bitch, with 'Rolling In The Deep' or 'Rumour Has It,'" she laughed to MTV News. "I was really emotionally drained from the way I was portraying him, because even though I'm very bitter and regret some parts of it, he's still the most important person that's ever been in my life, and 'Someone Like You,' I had to write it to feel OK with myself and OK with the two years I spent with him. And when I did it, I felt so freed."
Adele revealed that her former boyfriend may not know that he provided the inspiration for this and other tracks on 21. "I have no idea if he's heard the record, or is kind of clever enough to link it, to think it's him," she said. "I'm not saying he's dim. It's just that toward the end I don't think he felt like I loved him enough to write a record about him. But I did."
Adele wrote the first verse on acoustic guitar in the wake of her 18-month relationship with the 30-year-old man whom she believed was The One. "We were so intense I thought we would get married, " she told Q magazine. "But that was something he never wanted."
A few months after they split, he was engaged to someone else, "so when I found out that he does want that (marriage) with someone else, it was just the horrible-est feeling ever," she continued. "But after I wrote it, I felt more at peace. It set me free. I'm wiser in my songs. My words are always what I can never say (in real life). But I didn't think it would resonate…with the world! I'm never gonna write a song like that again. I think that's the song I'll be known for."
The singer added; "I wrote that song on the end of my bed. I had a cold. I was waiting for my bath to run. I'd found out he'd got engaged. And it blows my mind how things cross over like that."
A show-stopping performance from Adele of this song at the BRIT awards propelled it to the top of the UK singles charts dated February 20, 2011. With "Rolling in the Deep" at #4 as well and her first two albums at #4 and #1 respectively, Adele became the first living act to have two Top 5 singles and Top 5 albums in the same week since The Beatles back in 1964. (John Lennon also did so in the immediate aftermath of his death in December 1980).
This was the first single of the 2010s to sell over one million copies in the UK. The previous million seller was "I Gotta Feeling," which achieved the feat in 2009.
The song leapt to the summit of the Billboard Hot 100 following an acclaimed performance by Adele on the MTV Video Music Awards on August 28, 2011. It ended a chart-topping drought for ballads becoming the first slow song to reach #1 since Rihanna's "Take A Bow" led the May 24, 2008 survey.
Adele and Dan Wilson knew they had something special after their first session working on this song. When Adele played their rough mix for her manager, he loved it. When she played it for her mum, she cried.
According to Billboard magazine, this was the first piano-and-vocal-only ballad to top the Hot 100 since it started the charts in 1958. This is astounding when you consider that 1008 songs had been #1, and somehow none of them were just piano and voice. Some songs that came close, but include a some other instruments, include Elton John's "Candle In The Wind '97" and Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water."
The black-and-white, Jack Nava directed video was shot at night in Paris, and finds a sad Adele wandering the deserted streets of the city.
Read more: Adele Biography
One of the quirks in this song that makes it so engaging is the pre-chorus, which is nine-bars long instead of the usual eight. "That extra bar was like holding your breath just a little too long before the chorus hit," Dan Wilson explained. "We were both really excited about that section of the song."
It was announced in September 2011 that 21 had become the first album to sell more than three million copies in the UK in one calendar year. Commenting on Adele's record breaking success, Charts Company supremo Martin Talbot told CMU: "Three million albums in a year is a simply extraordinary achievement by Adele, who is now occupying an unparalleled position in the history of British music. In reaching such an elevated landmark so quickly, 21 has eclipsed any other album previously released in the UK - superseding even the likes of Sgt Pepper, Thriller, Dark Side of the Moon and Brothers In Arms. There is no questioning now that Adele has joined the ranks of British music legends."
Dan Wilson usually comes into songwriting sessions with "starts," which are bits of songs they can work on, but he didn't need them here, as Adele came in with two of her own: the first verse and refrain of what later became "Rumour Has It," and the first verse and melody of this song. Wilson, a "sucker for a sad story," chose "Someone Like You."
At first, Adele played guitar, but they quickly decided to make use of the Yamaha grand piano in the room (Wilson requests real pianos at his sessions).
As they wrote, Wilson played piano arpeggios that served as a second voice, providing a counterpoint to Adele's lead. They came up with the pre-chorus ("I hate to turn up out of the blue, uninvited…"), then the chorus, which changes chords. In their second day of songwriting, they finished the second verse, wrote a bride and made a few tweaks (Adele added "too" to the line, "I wish nothing but the best for you"), finishing by recording the demo that ended up being the actual recording.
The second half of the chorus ("Don't forget me, I begged…") is in a higher register, which was Dan Wilson's idea. It's hard to sing, even for Adele, and it took a little convincing for him to sell the idea. She thought it sounded uncomfortable, but he felt that vulnerability was what the song needed.
Adele wrote two other 21 tracks with Dan Wilson: "Don't You Remember" and "One and Only."
When this replaced "Moves Like Jagger" at the summit of the Hot 100 it marked the first time that back-to-back chart toppers had both featured similes. There had been 12 previous #1s sporting similes in their titles starting with "Walk Like a Man" back in 1963.
Scientists have studied this song to find out why it creates such an emotional reaction in listeners. A Wall Street Journal story revealed that musically, it's very much about small, unexpected changes in the melody. What they call "ornamental notes" appear all over the song, which create a kind of melancholy tension. Tearjerkers often move from soft to loud and contain some dramatic shifts at key moments - in "Someone Like You," this is when Adele's voice jumps an octave and becomes much louder in the chorus. Of course, none of this would help without heartfelt lyrics delivered with conviction.
Adele won Best Pop Solo Performance for this song at the 2012 Grammy Awards.
During her NBC special, Adele: Live in New York City, the singer explained to the audience how the meaning on the song has changed for her. "I don't sing this from the same place anymore," she announced. "I sing it from an amazing place because of my man who is here tonight - and I love you - and this is the first show that he's ever seen me do!"
According to a survey by Karaoke company Lucky Voice, around 25% of UK karaoke performers chose a track by Adele in 2011. This song was the most popular one for Lucky Voice's users, accounting for 14 percent of the 3 million songs sung in over that period, while her cover of "Make You Feel My Love" was the second most popular with 10 percent.
Lucky Voice also named this as the most popular karaoke song of 2012. The Karaoke website said that of the 3.1 million songs recorded by them, "Someone Like You" accounted for 7.4 per cent of all plays. Runner-up was Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe," with 5.4 per cent of their plays.
Adele told Q magazine about this heartbreaking album-closer: "It's about my last relationship, which was my first sort of life-defining one. He was a little older than me and he'd had a lot more experiences… No one did anything wrong; we just grew out of each other. But it was so intense."
Dan Wilson recorded a new version of this song with the Kronos Quartet for his 2017 album Re-Covered.
This was used in a 2011 Saturday Night Live skit where an office worker plays the song to get a good cry. Emma Stone catches her doing it, and wants in, leading others to follow. By the end, even the guys have joined in the action, bawling to Adele.
"Someone Like You" plays in the 2023 Netflix movie You People in a scene where Shelley (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) cranks it up when it comes on the car radio as she's driving with her potential daughter-in-law, Amira (Lauren London). Amira is more of a hip-hop kind of girl, but tries her best to fake interest as Shelley says, "I love this song, it is so fire," and sings along, poorly.
It's intercut with a scene of Amira's dad (Eddie Murphy) driving with her love interest, Ezra (Jonah Hill). They're listening to "Niggas in Paris" and having a very uncomfortable conversation about the song.
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Songfacts We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift
"We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" is a track featured on Taylor Swift's fourth studio album, Red, which was released in 2012. The song serves as the lead single from the album and was made available for digital download and U.S. pop radio on August 13, 2012, through Big Machine Records. Swift collaborated with Max Martin and Shellback to write and produce the song. "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" combines various pop styles, incorporating pulsing synthesizers, processed guitar riffs, bass drums, and a spoken-word bridge. The lyrics express Swift's frustration towards an ex-lover who desires to reignite their relationship. Additionally, an alternative version of the song was released to U.S. country radio on August 21, 2012.
Album: Red (2012)
Release Date: August 13, 2012
Taylor Swift's webchat with fans on August 13, 2012, revealed that "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" is a scornful yet playful song about one of her past romantic interests. Swift jokingly referred to it as a "really romantic song… touching and sensitive… to my lovely ex-boyfriend." When asked about the specific person the song is about, Swift playfully responded, "I'm trying not to be too cryptic with it, but I'm trying not to give it all away."
One potential celebrity candidate for the subject of the song is actor Jake Gyllenhaal, who had a relationship with Swift in late 2010 and early 2011. The song was inspired by an incident during a studio session with Max Martin and Johan Shellback, where a friend of Swift's ex-boyfriend walked in and started talking about rumors of a reconciliation between Swift and her ex. Swift clarified that this was not the case, and when the friend left, Max and Johan asked her about the story behind it. Swift then shared the story of the on-again, off-again nature of her relationship, which led to the creation of the song.
Max immediately suggested that they write a song based on this story, and Swift picked up the guitar and started singing the phrase "we are never." The song came together quickly and was a fun experience for Swift. As the lead single from her album Red, this song brought the spotlight back to Swift. It is a well-crafted pop song with subtle country influences, a style that Swift has found success with in the past. The song focuses on the pain of a failed relationship, a theme that resonates with Swift's teenage audience.
The composition blends a linear progression with a wide array of structural elements, resulting in an engaging and captivating listening experience. The chorus, in particular, offers a remarkably catchy melody and impactful lyrics, occupying a significant portion of the song's duration. The title of the song is cleverly incorporated throughout, making it easily memorable and catching the attention of casual listeners. Additionally, Swift intelligently revisits familiar thematic territory by focusing on a relationship, allowing her to solidify her musical identity while appealing to her dedicated fan base. The meticulous songwriting, relatable lyrics, and emphasis on pure pop stylings, rather than her country influences, make this an impressive and enticing introduction to Swift's album.
Read more: Songfacts Blank Space by Taylor Swift
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According to Nielsen SoundScan, "We Are Never" achieved remarkable sales of 623,000 units in its debut week. This accomplishment not only secured Swift the title for the largest digital sales week for a song by a female artist but also marked the second-highest sales week overall, trailing only Flo Rida's "Right Round," which debuted with 636,000 units in February 2009.
Furthermore, this song marked Swift's first-ever chart-topping hit on the Hot 100. Previously, she had reached the second position with "You Belong With Me" in 2009 and "Today Was a Fairytale" in 2010.
This song made its debut at #13 on the Country Songs chart, marking the highest debut ever achieved by a female artist in the SoundScan era. Now, let's explore the previous #1 by a country act before this remarkable achievement. There are two potential answers to this question:
1) Prior to this song, Carrie Underwood's American Idol coronation song "Inside Your Heaven" claimed the top spot on the Hot 100 chart dated July 2, 2005. However, it is worth noting that at that time, Underwood's label had not yet begun promoting her as a country artist, resulting in the song only reaching #52 on the Country Songs chart.
2) Another notable contender is Lonestar's "Amazed," which held the #1 position on the Country Songs chart for an impressive eight weeks in 1999. Additionally, it also enjoyed two weeks at the top of the Hot 100 chart in 2000.
Swift's 46th entry on the Hot 100 chart marked her first #1 hit, surpassing the record previously held by Dionne Warwick. Warwick had appeared on the chart 39 times before finally reaching the top spot on her 40th attempt with "Then Came You," featuring the Spinners, in 1974.
The music video for the song was directed by Declan Whitebloom, who had previously collaborated with Swift on the visuals for "Mean" and "Ours." Shot using a Sony F65 Cinealta Camera, the music video was also notable for being the first to be featured in 4K resolution.
The video was shot in one continuous take with no edits and features Swift in five different outfits, which required some very quick costume changes by the singer. "All modesty had to go out the window," Swift said to MTV News about her five furiously fast outfit switches. "All my clothes were put together with Velcro and snaps so that I could have three different outfits layered on top of each other."
"The costume changes were really hectic," she continued. "[We did them] in real time; it was crazy. At one point, I had a breaking point. 'I can't do five costume changes, there's not enough time!' but we ended up being able to do it."
Swift's band was only told at the last minute that they'd be performing in fuzzy animal costumes in the video. "All of the sudden, they wheel in their costume rack, full of animal costumes, and they were so mad," Swift recalled to MTV News. "It was hilarious. They were so angry. It took a couple hours, but they finally embraced it. It ended up being absolutely hilarious; they are really funny in that video. They owned it."
Swift's ex-love interest in the video is played by Canadian model-turned-actor Noah Mills (Sex and the City 2). Mills told MTV News that he enjoyed creating his character from such lines as, "And you would hide away and find your peace of mind with some indie record that's much cooler than mine." He said: "You hear what the lyrics are saying and think, 'Okay, if you're talking about this album you're listening to that's cooler than mine, I know that I'm listening to some album and subliminally sending some messages that I'm not in love with your music,' so you pick that up and as the character you play it."
Swift explained the Red album title relates to the intensity of her emotions during a series of failed relationships that were often very public. "All those emotions," she said, "spanning from intense love, intense frustration, jealousy, confusion, in my mind, all those emotions are red. There's nothing in between; there is nothing beige about any of those feelings."
Swift came up with this break-up anthem to drive a former boyfriend "crazy" when he heard the tune played on the radio. He'd belittled her music, and Swift wanted to make the song as catchy as possible so its constant airplay would annoy him. She explained to USA Today: "(It's) a definitive portrait of how I felt when I finally stopped caring what my ex thought of me. (He) made me feel like I wasn't as good or as relevant as these hipster bands he listened to… So I made a song that I knew would absolutely drive him crazy when he heard it on the radio. Not only would it hopefully be played a lot, so that he'd have to hear it, but it's the opposite of the kind of music that he was trying to make me feel inferior to."
The title of this song is a little cumbersome, and Swift said there were "lots of discussions" about what to call it. She preferred "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" from the start, telling Esquire: "It's very final, it's very aggressive, and it's not subtle."
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Swift offers a sarcastic dismissal to her hipster ex when she sings: "Hide away and find your peace of mind. With some indie record that's much cooler than mine." She told The Guardian: "That was the most important line of the song. It was a relationship where I felt very critiqued and subpar. He'd listen to this music that nobody had heard of … but as soon as anyone else liked these bands, he'd drop them. I felt that was a strange way to be a music fan. And I couldn't understand why he would never say anything nice about the songs I wrote or the music I made."
Taylor informed Digital Spy that she collaborated with Shellback and Max Martin to compose the song, completing it within a mere 25 minutes.
The song spent nine consecutive weeks at #1 on Billboard Country Singles, the most by a solo female artist in the history of the chart. The record was previously held by Connie Smith's "Once A Day," which spent eight weeks at peak position in 1964. Swift's run was the longest for any artist since David Houston stayed nine weeks with "Almost Persuaded" in 1966. The previous artist to have spent more than nine weeks at peak position on the country chart was Buck Owens, who led for 16 weeks in 1963-64 with "Love's Gonna Live Here."
Taylor selected this as Red's lead single primarily due to its infectious melody. She expressed to Radio.com that the choice of this particular track immediately stood out to her. Taylor would often share it with her loved ones, and within a few days, they would find themselves singing it, reciting every word. The song had an undeniable staying power that lingered in their minds.
Swift opened the Grammy Awards in 2013 with a performance of this song, changing the words in her vocal interlude to say that she's "busy opening the Grammy Awards." She was dressed like a sexy ringleader and backed by a circus performance. Once she took her seat in the audience, Taylor became the go-to cutaway, as she could be seen eagerly singing along to other performances throughout the show.
Swift told US Elle that she writes about her personal relationships to feel better. "To me it's just writing songs the way I always have," she said. "It's me sitting on my bed feeling pain I didn't understand, writing a song, and understanding it better. If people want to dissect the lyrics, that's their right, but it's all coming from the exact same place as where I started. It's just something I do to feel better."
In the 2014 edition of the Guinness Book of Records, this particular song secured a place for itself. Within a mere 50 minutes of its release, it soared to the top spot on iTunes, making it the fastest-selling digital single. However, this record was later surpassed by Ariana Grande's "Problem," which achieved the same feat in just 37 minutes after its release on April 28, 2014.
Furthermore, Taylor was recognized in the same edition of the book as the first female artist to have two million-selling weeks on the US album chart as a solo artist since records began in 1991.
Taylor Swift Biography
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Like most of Swift's songs, this was based on a real experience. As a teenager, she had an argument with her parents over a boy - they thought he was a creep, and Taylor thought it was love. She told 60 Minutes that he was, indeed, a creep, but she thought he was amazing at the time. The pre-chorus of the song came into her head: "You were Romeo, you were throwing pebbles, and my daddy said, 'Stay away from Juliet.'" She grabbed her guitar and worked out the chords on her bedroom floor.
Taylor Swift's painting on the wall
Taylor added that the song was met with indifference from her record company and her parents, but she fought for it, which she says was a fun experience because she had something to prove.
This could be about Swift's relationship with Joe Jonas of the Jonas Brothers, whom she dated for much of 2008. The line "Romeo, take me some place we can be alone" relates to how they were never alone due to their popularity. "I sneak out to the garden" is symbolic of how they had to sneak around to have dates due to the paparazzi.
The song also talks about Swift's father and his objection to Joe, but Taylor ignored her father's advice and continued to date him until their breakup in October.
Swift expanded on this song's invocation of the story of Romeo and Juliet in an interview with the Los Angeles Times October 26, 2008. Said Swift: "I was going through a situation like that where I could relate. I used to be in high school where you see [a boyfriend] every day. Then I was in a situation where it wasn't so easy for me, and I wrote this song because I could relate to the whole Romeo and Juliet thing. I was really inspired by that story. Except for the ending. I feel like they had such promise and they were so crazy for each other. And if that had just gone a little bit differently, it could have been the best love story ever told. And it is one of the best love stories ever told, but it's a tragedy. I thought, why can't you... make it a happy ending and put a key change in the song and turn it into a marriage proposal?"
Taylor Swift told The Morning Call the story of this song: "I wrote it about a guy that I was talking to. He wasn't the popular choice, but I believed in it. I thought, 'This love is different, but it's real.' And I knew I needed to put that line in somewhere. I think that this song is really more about a love that's not convenient and not as comfortable as something else, but it's something you have to fight for. I added the ending [a proposal] cause I want that ending. I want someone to say, 'I love you and that's all I really know.' That's the girly girl in me."
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Swift told Billboard magazine that the song is about "a love that you've got to hide because for whatever reason it wouldn't go over well. I spun it in the direction of 'Romeo and Juliet'; our parents are fighting. I relate to it more as a love that you cannot really elaborate on - a love that maybe society wouldn't accept [or] maybe your friends wouldn't accept."
The part of "Romeo" in the song's music video was played by Justin Gastin. The country singer and model is also known for being a contestant on Nashville Star and for dating Miley Cyrus.
This was the first country song to top the Mainstream Top 40 chart in that tally's history. The previous highest ranking on that chart for a country song, was the #3 placing of Shania Twain's "You're Still the One" in 1998.
Marketing country and western acts in Europe can be a problem, so an alternative "International Radio Mix" was created for the release of this song across the Atlantic. This country-lite mix retained the banjo plucking from the originally version but added a bassline, drums and an electric guitar solo to make it more palatable to European ears. The tactic worked in the UK, as this song became Swift's first British hit.
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On the chart week of June 6, 2009, this climbed to the peak position of the Adult Contemporary chart. This was the fifth song to reach #1 on both the Adult Contemporary and Hot Country lists. The previous four to do so were "What Hurts The Most," Rascal Flatts, 2006-07, "I Hope You Dance," Lee Ann Womack, 2001, "Breathe," Faith Hill, 2000 and "You're Still the One," Shania Twain, 1998.
Swift won video of the year and female video of the year at the 2009 Country Music Television awards for this song's promo. On winning the latter award Swift said, "This is for everybody who still believes in love stories, because I do."
Swift won her second straight song of the year award at the 2009 BMI Country Awards for this song. (Teardrops On My Guitar earned the prestigious honor in 2008.)
This song won the Video of the Year Award at the 2009 Country Music Association Awards. At the same ceremony, Swift swept up three other awards including Entertainer of the Year, becoming the youngest winner of the association's highest honor, as well as Album of the Year for Fearless and Female Vocalist of the Year.
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This song finds Lady Gaga bouncing verses with Florence + The Machine singer Florence Welch. Speaking on the BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show with Nick Grimshaw, the American songstress revealed how the collaboration came about: "I started to work on an idea for a song that I really wanted to do with a girl. You'll see why when you see what the song is about... I just thought 'who do I want to sing with?' She's (Florence) really to me if not the best, one of the greatest vocalists in the world. She's incredible
Multi-instrumentalist Regine Chassagne explained to The NME July 31, 2010: "Win (Butler, vocals) was strumming the chords on the guitar and I was on the couch and said, 'Hey, those chords sound like baroque music, so the words rococo comes from baroque
