Never Grow Up

Album: Speak Now (2010)
Charted: 58
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Songfacts®:

  • In July 2009 Swift moved out of her family home into a $1.9 million condo in Nashville, Tennessee. This song switches from a lullaby addressed to a young child to Taylor feeling alone as she spends her first night in her new apartment of her own. The song has an undercurrent of sadness as she reflects on the innocence of the young.
  • Swift explained on her website: "'Never Grow Up' is a song about the fact that I don't quite know how I feel about growing up. It's tricky. Growing up happens without you knowing it. Growing up is such a crazy concept because a lot of times when you were younger you wish you were older. I look out into a crowd every night and I see a lot of girls that are my age and going through exactly the same things as I'm going through. Every once in a while I look down and I see a little girl who is seven or eight, and I wish I could tell her all of this. There she is becoming who she is going to be and forming her thoughts and dreams and opinions. I wrote this song for those little girls."

Comments: 11

  • Anonymous Swiftie from IdkSoooo Good.
  • Anonymous IdiotLife feels like its over once you hit teenager age, and songs like this bring that sad but happy at the same time nostalgia to me, especially the line about 'Your little brother's favourite songs.' NOW try to say Taylor Swift is a terrible artist.
  • AlissaWhy do I burst into tears every time I hear it? it's one of my favorites.
  • Ava from San Francisco, CaliforniaThis song makes me cry every time but I still love it. It has such a nice meaning! :]
  • AnonymousIt's true that all of us tend to think about growing up as kids, but when we are finally grown up and when it's time for us to start new, we unconsciously think of our old days, when we used to think about just nothing and enjoy the time as it is, with no restrictions and responsibilities. This song is a real masterpiece!
  • Mary from Long Island, NyToday, when we got off the exit to my daughter's college (she's a freshman and will be living in a dorm on campus), she switched the music we were listening to and put this song on. I had never heard the song before and it took a few minutes to realize that she had planned and timed this perfectly. We both were quietly crying as we pulled onto the campus. We spent the next 6 hours together decorating and setting up her new home away from home. It was the best six hours of my summer. This song has very touching lyrics and today is a day I will remember forever. Love you Rosebud!
  • Cam from Denver, ColoradoThey played this song at a preschool graduation I went to for a kid I babysit. It was the first time I had heard this song (this happened 4 years ago (ish)), and even now whenever I hear it, I think of that kid, along with the other kids I babysit, and it hits me just how fast they're growing up. The oldest 2 of the kids I've babysat especially seem to want to grow up faster than they already are, and I want to tell them to just be kids for a while longer. Their younger siblings (the other kids I babysit, for the most part) aren't trying to grow up too fast, but they're still growing up faster than I can believe. I remember not very long ago when one of them could only communicate with babbles and cries, and just a few days ago he spent half an hour telling me a (probably mostly exaggerated) story, and I understood nearly every word he said.

    Anyway, I forgot where I was going with this, and it turned into a rambling mess, but basically, kids grow up too fast, and this song makes me cry.
  • Parvin Nina from Selangor, MalaysiaFor me this song is so unique it actually shares a story of a small kid in Taylor's eyes... she shares her special feeling with her audience. I wonder how she does that into a song we cannot even express in words YOU ARE MY BIGGEST FAN TAYLOR love ya.
  • Tara from Hicksville, NyI love love this song. Cannot listen to it without crying or at least tearing up. I don't have children but i do have little neice's that i adore and love. whenever i hear this song i think of their sweet innocent faces and how the world hasn't damaged them or broken their hearts yet....and i hope it never will...but it's innevitable sometimes. They have to grow up, we all do, and it happens so fast! I'm always begging them to 'PLEASE STOP GROWING UP AND GETTING BIG' but it's the way it goes. I'm gonna miss them at this age
    when "everything's funny" and they "have nothing to regret"...i would give ANYTHING for them to stay like that : ) This song just really makes me apprecite them as sweet innocent little kids....
  • Karen from Manchester, NhRight before "Speak Now" came out, my husband and I had talked to our daughters - ages 6 and 8 - about not growing up too fast and enjoying being children for a little while. The 8-year-old is a HUGE Taylor Swift fan, and we got her "Speak Now" for her birthday (it actually came out about a week before her birthday). The first time I heard this song I burst into tears, and I cry every time I hear it. My daughter remembered the conversation and was amazed that her beloved Taylor told her the same thing Mom & Dad did. She will lightly tease me, calling this my song, but she totally gets it. This song will always be so special to me. God bless you, Taylor.
  • Nell from Chatham, NjThis song really makes you miss being a kid.

    Kids wanna grow up fast but then they realize its much harder then they think it is.
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