That song is essentially written about an important lesson I learned that really changed how I live my life and how I look at my life. I really wanted it to be a song that made people want to get up and dance at a wedding reception from the first drum beat. But I also wanted it to be a song that could help someone get through something really terrible, if they wanted to focus on the emotional profile, on the lyrics. Because I’ve had people say things to me like, “When my mom died, I listened to this every single day to help me get out of bed.” And then I’ve had people say, “I danced to this drunk at a wedding reception.” If they want to forget about the lyrics, they can, but if they want to hang on every word, they can do that, too.

It takes a long time to figure out who you are and where you fit in in the world. I’m putting myself in all these awkward situations where the dancers are incredible, and I’m having fun with it, but not fitting in. They’re doing the most beautiful things, and I’m being embarrassingly bad at it. It shows you to keep doing you, keep being you, keep trying to figure out where you fit in in the world, and eventually you will.

“Shake It Off” is a song that I wrote about having to deal with, on a every day basis, just kind of human beings treat each other. It’s not just me who has to deal with it, it’s everybody out there living their lives. The feeling of humiliation is the same when a girl has a rumour spread about her at school that isn’t true, it’s the same feeling I feel when I am checking out of the grocery store and I read some crazy headline about me. And I think that the way we have to deal with those issues is the same. You have to learn to have a sense of humour about things after a while, or else you’ll just live in an endless sea of resentment and bitterness and “Why are people doing this to me?” And rather than writing a song that was victmized in nature, I wanted to write a song that was joyful and gives people a way to cope with whatever ridiculousness life dulling out to them, but also makes you want to dance.

— Via Yahoo! Live.