TAS Rights ManagementTaylor Swift‘s new album, Lover, is coming out on Friday, but its lead single, “ME!”, has been out since April. However, it seems as though Taylor had second thoughts about one particular line in the song, which has now been removed from the track.
According to Rolling Stone, the Apple Music version of “ME!” no longer contains the line “Hey, kids! Spelling is fun!” Those words are shouted out by Taylor and duet partner Brendon Urie, prior to the part where they sing, “Girl, there ain’t no I in ‘team’/But you know there is a ‘me’…And you can’t spell ‘awesome’ without ‘me.'”
When last we checked, the Spotify version still contained the line, but Rolling Stone speculates that it, too, will be replaced soon. It’s not clear which version will ultimately appear on the complete Lover album.
As for why it was removed, “ME!” was criticized for having lightweight lyrics, but most critics saved their harshest condemnation for that line, which one critic called the “low point” of the entire song.
Explaining the thinking behind that line, Taylor said in an interview with an Australian radio network, “With this song, we really just wanted to have this song not really be fully taking itself seriously.”
“So the lyrics, that’s a tone decision that we made in the studio,” she continued. “We literally were like, ‘O.K,, let’s say ‘Hey, kids! Spelling is fun’ because we want everyone to know that this song is not really serious because it’s not, like, a serious love song.”
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