Taylor Swift hit #1 on the AC charts with “You Belong with Me”

You Belong with Me Taylor Swift

Writer(s): Taylor Swift, Liz Rose (see lyrics here) Released: April 18, 2009 First Charted: November 22, 2008 Peak: 2 US, 11 RR, 114 AC, 2 A40, 12 CW, 30 UK, 3 CN, 4 AU, 10 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 7.0 US, 0.6 UK, 8.35 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 0.7 radio, 1201.24 video, -- streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Taylor Swift took the world by storm in 2008-2009. Her second album, Fearless, pulled off the astonishing feat of sending twelve of its 13 songs into the Billboard Hot 100. Four went top ten, with “You Belong with Me” being the biggest. The song also gave her a fourth trip to the top of the country charts and marked her second ascension to the pinnacle of the adult contemporary chart (following “Love Story”). It was also the first song in nearly a decade (the last being Faith Hill’s “Breathe” in 2000) to simultaneously chart in the top 5 of the Hot 100 and country charts. WK and the first country song to top the Billboard Hot 100 radio airplay chart AB’00 Swift somehow “made teen love, angst, and romance sound incredibly fresh again.” AB’00 She explained that she overheard a friend’s conversation and wrote the song’s first line, “You’re on the phone with your girlfriend/ She’s upset, going off about something that you said.” SF The song hit on the idea that, as she told MTV News, “somehow the popular girl gets the guy every time” even though she “doesn’t appreciate him at all.” WK She extended the idea “that I’m in love with him and he should be with me instead of her,” SF and highlighted the differences between the two women with lines like “She wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts.” SF The video for the song was shot at the high school in Hendersonville, Tennessee, where her brother went. SF Lucas Till, from Hannah Montana: The Movie, starred as her love interest and in case of life imitating art, the two dated for a short time after doing the video. SF The video’s director, Roman White, said the sparks between the two were evident to everyone on set. He joked, “How many kisses did we go through? I stopped counting at, like, 45.” SF Swift became the first country artist to win an MTV Video Music Award, landing the prize for Best Female Video at the 2009 Awards. Her win was overshadowed when rapper Kanye West interrupted her acceptance speech to proclaim his opinion that Beyoncé should have won the award. When Beyoncé won Video of the Year for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” she graciously invited Swift back on stage to finish her speech. Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Taylor Swift SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: Last updated 10/21/2022.