Swift Notes: Red (A Guide to Taylor Swift's Songs)

"We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"

8. “WE ARE NEVER EVER GETTING BACK TOGETHER”

BEHIND THE MUSIC

Taylor was in the studio working on another song with Max Martin and Shellback, when a friend of her ex walked in and said he’d heard the two lovers were making up. When he left, Taylor went on a rant, telling her producers they were never ever getting back together. Like, ever. Max saw a song there, and they started writing. “It came from a very real place and it came from a very spontaneous situation,” she said. Taylor started strumming the guitar and calling the chorus, then asked, “Is that too obvious? Is that too obvious to just say that over and over again?” The producers didn’t think so, and 25 minutes later, they had a song.

BETWEEN THE LINES

“Never Ever” is an intuitive track to follow the indecision and wistfulness of “I Almost Do.” By the time this infectious pop earworm kicks in, she’s made up her mind and comes off as confident, triumphant, and even . . . happy. Taylor called this “a breakup song in the form of a parade.” Though it could seem like a throwaway detail, Taylor has called the indie records line the most important in the song. “It was a relationship where I felt very critiqued and subpar,” she said. “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.” Her best revenge for that judgment? Crafting an international pop hit he’d hear everywhere he went: “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.”

AUDIENCE OF ONE

Looks like Jake Gyllenhaal is the indie music snob in question here. Fans connected the scarf in the “Never Ever” video with Taylor’s serial scarf wearing during her relationship with Gyllenhaal. When Katie Couric asked about it, Taylor replied, “I didn’t know that that was a thing that people figured out.”

DIARY DECODER

“When I stopped caring what you thought” highlights the defiant freedom of this track.

CHARTING SUCCESS

“Never Ever” was Taylor’s first song to top the Billboard Hot 100. Swifty called the chart triumph “a serious jumping-up-and-down-screaming moment.” It also broke the record for highest weekly digital sales for a female performer with 623,000 downloads in the first week and climbed to the top of the iTunes charts in 32 countries. As of July 29, 2013, “Never Ever” had earned its 4x platinum certification. The song also nabbed a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year.

(excerpted from our book about Swifty, Taylor Swift: The Platinum Edition, available wherever books are sold!)

Thanks to @falleninfinitybooks for this week's Swift Notes image!