"Mean" is a song by American country pop singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, taken from her third studio album, Speak Now (2010). The song, written by Swift and produced by Nathan Chapman and Swift, was first released as a promotional single for the album on October 17, 2010, by Big Machine Records. The song was later released as an official single on March 7, 2011.

Upon its release as a promotional single, the song garnered mixed to positive reviews from critics for its lyrical detail and profound country sound. "Mean" received commercial success in the United States and Canada, debuting at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number ten on the Canadian Hot 100. The song also appeared on the Australian Singles Chart at number 45. It was later re-released as the third official single from Speak Now, and re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 90. Additionally, "Mean" became Swift's 13th consecutive single to reach top ten on Hot Country Songs when it jumped from number 12 to number 9 on the week ending May 14, 2011.

In statistics, mean has two related meanings:

There are other statistical measures that should not be confused with averages - including 'median' and 'mode'. Other simple statistical analyses use measures of spread, such as range, interquartile range, or standard deviation. For a real-valued random variable X, the mean is the expectation of X. Note that not every probability distribution has a defined mean (or variance); see the Cauchy distribution for an example.

For a data set, the mean is the sum of the values divided by the number of values. The mean of a set of numbers x₁, x₂, ..., x_n is typically denoted by Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \bar{x} , pronounced "x bar". This mean is a type of arithmetic mean. If the data set were based on a series of observations obtained by sampling a statistical population, this mean is termed the "sample mean" (Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \bar{x} ) to distinguish it from the "population mean" (Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mu or Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mu _x). The mean is often quoted along with the standard deviation: the mean describes the central location of the data, and the standard deviation describes the spread. An alternative measure of dispersion is the mean deviation, equivalent to the average absolute deviation from the mean. It is less sensitive to outliers, but less mathematically tractable.

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing. A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs. The lyrics (words) of songs are typically of a poetic, rhyming nature, though they may be religious verses or free prose.

A song may be for a solo singer, a duet, trio, or larger ensemble involving more voices. Songs with more than one voice to a part are considered choral works. Songs can be broadly divided into many different forms, depending on the criteria used. One division is between "art songs", "pop songs", and "folk songs". Other common methods of classification are by purpose (sacred vs secular), by style (dance, ballad, Lied, etc.), or by time of origin (Renaissance, Contemporary, etc.).

A song is a piece of music for accompanied or unaccompanied voice or voices or, "the act or art of singing," but the term is generally not used for large vocal forms including opera and oratorio. However, the term is, "often found in various figurative and transferred sense (e.g. for the lyrical second subject of a sonata...)." The noun "song" has the same etymological root as the verb "to sing" and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines the word to mean "that which is sung" or "a musical composition suggestive of song." The OED also defines the word to mean "a poem" or "the musical phrases uttered by some birds, whales, and insects, typically forming a recognizable and repeated sequence and used chiefly for territorial defence or for attracting mates."

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter and occasional actress. Raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, Swift moved to Nashville, Tennessee at the age of fourteen to pursue a career in country music. She signed to the independent label Big Machine Records and became the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house. The release of Swift's self-titled debut album in 2006 established her as a country music star. "Our Song", her third single, made her the youngest sole writer and singer of a number one song on the country chart. She received a Best New Artist nomination at the 50th Grammy Awards.

Swift's second album, Fearless, was released in late 2008. Buoyed by the chart success of the singles "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me", Fearless attracted a crossover audience and became the top-selling album of 2009. The record won four Grammy Awards, with Swift becoming the youngest ever Album of the Year winner. Fearless also received Album of the Year plaudits at the American Music Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards and Country Music Association Awards, making it the most awarded album in country music history. In 2010, Swift released her third album, Speak Now, which sold over one million copies in its first week. She then embarked on the 111-date Speak Now World Tour, which was attended by over 1.6 million fans and has become one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time. The album's third single, "Mean", won two Grammy Awards for Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance. Swift is currently recording her fourth studio album, due for release in the fall of 2012.

Dame Rachel Eleanor Crowdy, DBE (3 March 1884, Paddington - 10 October 1964, Outwood, Surrey) was an English nurse and social reformer. She was Principal Commandant of Voluntary Aid Detachments in France and Belgium from 1914 to 1919 and Chief of the Department of Opium Traffic and Social Issues Section of the League of Nations from 1919 to 1931. She was also an active member of the British National Committee for the Suppression of the White Slave Trade.

The daughter of James Crowdy, Rachel Crowdy was educated at Hyde Park New College before training as a nurse at Guy's Hospital. She met Katharine Furse in 1911, volunteering to serve as a Red Cross nurse in case of invasion. At the outset of World War I Furse and Crowdy travelled abroad to discover what was being done for the wounded, their investigation resulting in the establishment of rest stations. Crowdy was appointed Principal Commandant of V.A.D.s in 1914. She was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1919.

From 1919 to 1931 Crowdy was Head of the Social Questions and Opium Traffic Section of the League of Nations, making her the only woman to be head of an administrative section of the League. In 1920-21 she accompanied the International Typhus Commission to Poland at the height of the post-war epidemic there. On her retirement from the League, she was guest of honour at a dinner for six hundred women at the Café Royal.