Taylor Swift‘s ‘Shake It Off‘ has been one of the most successful songs of her career that has topped multiple charts and had over billions of streams across music platforms. Coming from her award-winning and highly acclaimed album ‘1989′, the groovy pop track has found its place in Swift’s discography as one of her very best.
Like most of Swift’s songs, her own life served as an inspiration for ‘Shake It Off.’ Here’s the backstory of the song and how it led her to a court battle.
What Inspired Taylor Swift To Write ‘Shake It Off‘?
The song is quite literally about “shaking it off.” Taylor Swift sings about the mountain of criticism and hate she gets and how the haters will continue hating while she just chooses to “shake it off”. The music video of the song features Swift doing multiple dance numbers awkwardly and unapologetically.
Related: Has Taylor Swift Ever Taken Therapy? Here’s What She Has Said In The Past
Speaking about the song, Swift once said on her official YouTube channel, “I’ve learned a pretty tough lesson that people can say whatever they want about us at any time, and we cannot control that. The only thing we can control is our reaction to that.”
During a Rolling Stone interview, Swift said, “I’ve had every part of my life dissected—my choices, my actions, my words, my body, my style, my music. When you live your life under that kind of scrutiny, you can either let it break you or you can get really good at dodging punches. And when one lands, you know how to deal with it. And I guess the way that I deal with it is to shake it off.”
Why Was A Lawsuit Filed Against Taylor Swift For ‘Shake It Off’?
Taylor Swift faced a copyright lawsuit for the lyrics of ‘Shake it Off‘, a case which she later gloriously won. The copyright lawsuit was brought forth in 2017 by Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, the songwriters of 3LW’s ‘Playas Gon’ Play‘, who claimed that the lyrics “playas gonna play” and “haters gonna hate” were identical.
A judge dismissed it in 2018 because the lyrics were “too banal” to be copied, but an appeal panel brought it back in 2021. Taylor denied ever hearing the 3LW song, in any kind of social or media context. The 3LW hit first surfaced on an album in 2000 when Swift was ten years old. She claimed that her parents did not let her watch MTV’s Total Request Live until she was “about 13 years old.”
Swift said, “The lyrics to Shake It Off were written entirely by me. Until learning about Plaintiffs’ claim in 2017, I had never heard the song Playas Gon’ Play and had never heard of that song or the group 3LW.”
Related: Understanding White Feminism As Taylor Swift Gets Accused Of Being A White Girl Feminist
She further added that the inspiration for ‘Shake It Off‘ came from “experiences in my life and, in particular, unrelenting public scrutiny of my personal life, ‘clickbait’ reporting, public manipulation, and other forms of negative personal criticism which I learned I just needed to shake off and focus on my music.”
Swift continued, “With Shake It Off, I wanted to provide a comedic, empowering approach to helping people feel better about negative criticism through music, dance, and the personal independence enabling one to just shake off the negative criticism.”
