Songfacts®:

• Pink wrote this country-rock song with her friend Butch Walker, who also worked on the singer-songwriter's 2006 I'm Not Dead album.
• Pink explained that she had the idea for this song, which asks the question, 'how did we get so mean?' before the breakup of her marriage with the motocross racer Carey Hart. She explained: "One of the last trips that me and Carey took was me, Butch, Nora (Butch's wife), Steve Astafin and Jade Astafin… really good friends of ours. We're like the six musketeers. We would always travel together. And it was one of our last trips and it was for Butch's birthday to O-Hi. We all went and brought a guitar and had a picnic. I hadn't started working on my record yet and I took Butch over to the side, we're all so close that we all knew that Carey and I were unraveling. Even Carey and I did. And it was okay. It was sad and weird and beautiful. We just knew it was one of our last trips as the 'six.' And I took Butch to the side, away from them a little bit, and I said 'I wanna write a song called How Did We Get So Mean? And we started writing right there at the picnic in front of everyone. And it was awkward and beautiful and amazing. And there's still so much love at that picnic and so much honesty. Butch was the first person I worked with after Carey and I decided to split. And I sat there and cried through the rest of the song with Butch. We worked through it and I sang it into a laptop crying. I think everyone can relate to that song. My dad cried when he listened to that song."
  
  Pink and Hart later reconciled.
• Pink's fledgling relationship with Hart inspired many of the tracks on Funhouse, her fifth studio album, including the hit singles "So What" and "Please Don't Leave Me."