i've always heard it as an intentional double-entendre, though the way he pronounces it is closer to NME than to enemy, at least to my american ears.
― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 13 February 2004 18:53 (twenty years ago) link
― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Saturday, 14 February 2004 06:02 (twenty years ago) link
Haha, I put that song right before "Frederick" on my 1979 MP3 CDR without even knowing that!
― nate detritus (natedetritus), Saturday, 14 February 2004 06:13 (twenty years ago) link
Taylor Swift, "Mean" (maybe)
― xhuxk, Saturday, 6 November 2010 00:58 (thirteen years ago) link
Gary Numan, "I Die: You Die"
― margana (anagram), Saturday, 6 November 2010 07:39 (thirteen years ago) link
"Go to Hell, Miss Rydell"
― the who cares (okamax), Saturday, 6 November 2010 08:21 (thirteen years ago) link
"Pinball Wizard" was written after an early version of The Who's Tommy failed to impress critic Nik Cohn. Pete Townsend knew Cohn was a pinball fanatic, so he decided Tommy would be a pinball champ and quickly wrote the song to appease him (it worked.)
Serious pinball junkies (myself included) will discern that the lyrics reflect Townsend's unfamiliarity with the nuances of pinball.
― Lee626, Monday, 8 November 2010 01:03 (thirteen years ago) link
Honestly think that "Mean" is about bullying and not necessarily about music critics.
― kkvgz, Monday, 8 November 2010 01:22 (thirteen years ago) link
Ben (Keith?) mentioned "Ambulance Blues" six years ago, but he got the aimed-at-critics verse wrong; it's "So all you critics sit alone/You're no better than me for what you've shown/With your stomach pumps and your hook-and-ladder dreams/We could get together for some scenes." I'm guessing Neil meant critics in the more general sense of people who criticize, not the Lester Bangs variety.
― clemenza, Monday, 8 November 2010 01:28 (thirteen years ago) link
pinpointing what a song's "about" is a mug's game (despite taylor being annoying and tempting everyone to focus on it) but "mean" is so obviously set in her pre-fame days, before she lived in a big city, so whether it's referring to the first critical audiences she performed to or high school bullies...it's certainly not national rock critics.
― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Monday, 8 November 2010 02:31 (thirteen years ago) link
Sting - "Epilogue (Nothing 'Bout Me)"
― sandra lee, gimme your alcohol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 8 November 2010 02:34 (thirteen years ago) link
Let's just say "Mean" works on a few different levels, and there's no requirement to take it as autobiography at all, when you get down to it. I definitely don't think it's mainly a song about critics, but it's not "obviously" anything. (Not even bullying -- could be child abuse!) And it will certainly be heard as being about people criticizing her singing in the here and now -- given that's when it's been released, and all. And it's a stretch to think that didn't Taylor didn't realize that, when she included it on a 2010 album. So it's kind of nit-picky to suggest it doesn't belong here.
― xhuxk, Monday, 8 November 2010 03:09 (thirteen years ago) link
oliver wang, you don't know what gangsta is
― my sex drew back into itself tight and dry (abanana), Monday, 8 November 2010 04:12 (thirteen years ago) link
Which leads to this.
― the who cares (okamax), Monday, 8 November 2010 04:43 (thirteen years ago) link
G'n'R "Get in the Ring" ownzzz― Shakey Mo Collier, Saturday, January 31, 2004 12:22 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalinkespecially cuz Axl refused to back it up.― Shakey Mo Collier, Saturday, January 31, 2004 12:22 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
Did any of his targets actually challenge him?
― billstevejim, Monday, 8 November 2010 04:58 (thirteen years ago) link