You Belong with Me

Taylor Swift told That's Country the story of this song, which she co-wrote this with her frequent collaborator Liz Rose. Said Swift: "I came into the writing session with Liz Rose and said, I've got this idea. I had overheard a friend of mine talking to his girlfriend and he was completely on the defensive saying, 'No, baby... I had to get off the phone really quickly... I tried to call you right back... Of course I love you. More than anything! Baby, I'm so sorry.' She was just yelling at him! I felt so bad for him at that moment. So I came up with the first line 'You're on the phone with your girlfriend, she's upset, going off about something that you said,' and I ran that into the story line that I'm in love with him and he should be with me instead of her. It just became this whole picture. It was really fun for us to write the line, 'She wears short skirts, I wear T-shirts.'"

Taylor explained to MTV News: "This song is basically about wanting someone who is with this girl who doesn't appreciate him at all. Basically like 'girl-next-door-itis.' You like this guy who you have for your whole life, and you know him better than she does but somehow the popular girl gets the guy every time."

The music video was shot at the Pope John Paul II High School in Hendersonville, Tennessee, where Taylor lives and her younger brother goes to school. It stars Lucas Till from Hannah Montana: The Movie. The singer-songwriter told MTV News: "I met him about a year back and just kind of reached out and was like, 'Hey, want to be in the video?' And he accepted and I'm just really happy to have him in the video."

Songs rarely find themselves in the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 and Country Songs simultaneously. However this one did so in the charts for the week ending July 31st 2009 and repeated the feat the following week. The previous song to achieve this was Faith Hill's "Breathe," which over nine years previously, on Feb. 26, 2000, ranked at #5 on both charts.

The song's promo won the 2009 MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video, beating Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it)" amongst others. Swift's victory apparently did not meet with the approval of Kanye West, who during her acceptance speech, jumped up onto the stage. He then cut the teen singer off, grabbed her microphone and announced: "Yo Taylor, I'm really happy for you, I'll let you finish, but Beyoncé has one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!" A stunned Taylor was timed out and consequently unable to complete her acceptance speech. Later when "Single Ladies" won the show's top honor - Video of the Year, Beyoncé showed her class by calling back Swift to the stage to finish her speech. "I would like Taylor to come out and have her moment," she said. Swift was asked afterwards by MTV News what her first reaction to seeing West join her onstage at Radio City Music Hall She replied: "I was really excited, because I had just won the award. And then I was really excited because Kanye West was onstage. And then I wasn't so excited anymore after that."

Billboard magazine reported on 24th September 2009 that with an audience of 117 million, this tune was the most heard song on US radio that week. The song was the first country crossover track to achieve that feat since tracking firm Nielsen Soundscan's started keeping records in 1990.

This reached #1 on Adult Contemporary chart, making Swift the first artist to place two chart-toppers on that chart, which previously reached the summit of the Country chart. Love Story also achieved the same feat.

Swift told Rolling Stone regarding the song's video: "When I'm playing the mean girl cheerleader and I'm flirting with some other guy on the football field, that other guy is just one of my brother's friends."

Swift performed a banjo-fied take of this song on the 2010 Grammy telecast. She was accompanied by singer-songwriter Butch Walker, who told Rolling Stone how he ended up on the gig. "I had done this version of 'You Belong With Me' that had banjo on it and was just fun," he said. "I posted it online one night and when I woke up the next morning, people were freaking out because Taylor twittered about it and she was freaking out. She loved it apparently, and she twittered me again and said, 'Can I call you?'" Swift did ring Walker and asked if he'd join her onstage at the Grammys. Walker said he replied, "'Yeah, twist my arm, as long as I can pay banjolin' - which is a combination of mandolin and banjo, but not quite either, but it's on the song that I did and it's pretty much the staple of the sound."

The music video was directed by Fifteen director, Roman White. He told MTV News: "I really wanted there to be a great love story there. It's about these two people who have lived these two lives across from each other and both of them loved each other but just never knew it. They were just barely missing each other, across the way." White revealed to MTV News that sparks between Swift and Lucas Till were evident to everyone on set. "How many kisses did we go through? I stopped counting at, like, 45," he joked. "They were going for it, no? When you're shooting this, you're always looking for that perfect kiss, but as the director, it's always weird for me to go, 'OK - we need you to kiss a few more times.' But they were very natural. ... Not that they didn't like each other, 'cause they did." The duo subsequently dated for a short time after doing the video. White commented on why the pair clicked. "They're both really, really kind. It sounds really cheesy, but they really are," he said. "I think you can see it when they kiss. You can see that warmth and that kind of first-kiss moment. So we literally got to see their first kiss, and it worked."

Award-winning recording artist Lady Gaga revealed in an interview with Show Studio that she loves singing this song. The pop icon added that she gets embarrassed because she sings along so loudly when she hears it on the radio. Gaga explained: "I think it's just because it's very whimsical in a way that I'm not necessarily whimsical every day."

Weird Al Yankovic recorded a parody of this song called "TMZ," which is about the celebrity gossip factory.