Man Of Steel…Or Stone? Taylor Swift’s “Superman” Meaning, Explained
Taylor Swift’s Superman is an idealistic look at unattainable love. She imagines her crush as a superhero who is “saving the world,” and doesn’t have time for some civilian girl who lives on a boring Earth.
What’s really going on in this song, who is it about, and why does it now seem much darker and foreboding in 2023’s Taylor’s Version?
Here’s my full English teacher analysis of Taylor Swift’s Superman meaning, line by line.
Superman (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift
- Title: Superman (Taylor’s Version)
- Track: 16, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)
- Written By: Taylor Swift
- Secret Message: “Today I am saved.”
Superman Narrative Summary
- Setting: In Taylor’s everyday world, watching her “superman” go off and do important things.
- Characters: Narrator (Taylor), subject (“Superman”, “you”, “he”)
- Theme: Unattainable love.
- Mood: Awestruck, understanding, sheepish.
- Conflict: “Superman” never makes time for her.
- Inciting Incident: “I watch Superman fly away” (she watches her crush leave).
- Quest: Attain this illusive love.
- Central Metaphor: her crush as “Superman,” a flighty superhero who lives in a different universe.
- Lesson: Wild horses can’t be tamed (Superman will never come back down to live on Earth when he can fly).
What is Superman About?
Superman compares Taylor’s love interest to the iconic comic book superhero.
Superman is also Clark Kent, a normal, everyday reporter who happens to also morph into a flying “man of steel.” In the comics (and various films and tv shows), coworker Lois Lane is Clark Kent’s love interest, and eventually discovers he is Superman.
Their romance plays out differently in each adaptation, but in the original DC comic books, Superman won’t marry her, though she keeps trying to convince him to.
Who is Superman About?
Though Taylor has never explicitly revealed who this song may have been inspired by, most fans surmise that Superman is about John Mayer. Taylor briefly dated the musician in 2010, and later wrote the heartwrenching track Dear John about their relationship.
Mayer mentions the same superhero in his song 83.
She said of the song before performing it live on tour, “This is about, well, a guy, as usual. This was a guy that I was sort of enamored with, as usual. This song got its title from something that I just said randomly in conversation. When he walked out of the room, I turned to one of my friends and said, ‘It’s just like watching Superman fly away’.”
As we’ll learn in the lyrical analysis, “fly away” is the key phrase to describe this “superhero.”
Superman Meaning: Line by Line
Taylor sets up her comic book superhero metaphor from the very first line.
“Tall, dark, and superman,” she says of her love interest, playing on the common phrase ‘tall, dark and handsome.’ He’s appealing, and he’s also got some kind of special powers or spell over her.
“He puts papers in his briefcase and drives away,” she says of her superhero. In the comic books, Superman is only ever seen with a briefcase when he’s Clark Kent.
This is Taylor setting up the metaphors of Superman and Clark Kent: two characters who are different things to different people.
Her man is off “To save the world or go to work / It’s the same thing to me.” Clark Kent may simply go off to work, while Superman goes off to save the world. These two characters are the same thing for her. She gets to see both sides of him (or she imagines she does), unlike Lois Lane, who took a long while to uncover Kent’s alter ego.
“He’s got his mother’s eyes, his father’s ambition,” she says, implying familial bonds, “I wonder if he knows how much that I miss him.” She wonders if he even knows how strongly she feels about him.
“I hang on every word you say,” she says, switching from “he” to “you.” Since she’s not talking about two different people, this is likely a play on his two-sided nature.
“And you smile and say, ‘How are you?’,” she says of their down-to-earth, everyday conversations, “ And I’ll say, ‘Just fine’.” She’s not really fine, though, as we’ll learn in the rest of the lyrics.
“I always forget to tell you, ‘I love you’,” she says, “I love you forever.” She’s either so awe-struck by him that she can’t get the words out, or she feels too timid to admit her feelings for this man she idolizes.
💜 How well do you know Speak Now? Take the Speak Now TV Lyrics Quiz! 💜
Chorus: “I Watch Superman Fly Away”
“I watch Superman fly away,” she says in the chorus. This time he’s flying, not driving. But either way – and whether he’s Clark Kent or Superman in any given moment – he’s leaving once again.
“You’ve got a busy day today,” she says, understanding why he has to leave. “Go save the world, I’ll be around,” she says, constantly waiting for him.
“Come back, I’ll be with you someday,” she says of her highest hopes: he’ll come back, and finally be with her.
“I’ll be right here on the ground,” she says, “When you come back down.” Within the Superman metaphor, this makes sense. He flies away for important business, then returns to earth.
But this positions him “above” her at all times, and leaves her waiting on “the ground” for him to come back. There’s a power imbalance, and it foreshadows harder things to come.
Verse 2: “He’s Complicated, He’s Irrational”
“Tall, dark and beautiful,” she says of him in the second verse. But here, “dark” could describe his personality, as she’ll allude to in the next line.
“He’s complicated, he’s irrational,” she says of this complex, confusing man. He’s like a puzzle she wants to solve, but can never quite crack.
“But I hope someday you’ll take me away, and save the day,” she says dreamily. This places Taylor firmly inside the damsel in distress archetype, which she’s used since her debut album. Songs like Love Story (“Romeo, take me!”) illustrate this same trope: the girl needs to be saved, and the boy swoops in to rescue her.
“Something in his deep brown eyes has me sayin’,” she says, probing his eyes for clues, “He’s not all bad like his reputation.” He’s the “bad boy”, as she described in the previous track Ours.
He’s bad news, but “I can’t hear one single word they say,” she says of the people who tried to warn her away from him.
“And you’ll leave, got places to be, and I’ll be okay,” she says of his continuous departures. The power dynamic here feels really off: he’s got “places to be”, but she’s just waiting for him on the ground, saying “I’ll be okay”?
“I always forget to tell you, ‘I love you’,” she says again, “I loved you from the very first day.” But has she really forgotten? Or does she not want to say it in case he doesn’t say it back (as she’ll describe in the vault track Foolish One).
Bridge: “I Hope You Don’t Save Some Other Girl”
“And I watch you fly around the world,” she says of his constant jet setting. But she doesn’t get to “fly,” or even come along for the ride. She just sits and watches him.
“And I hope you don’t save some other girl,” she says of her superhero. But what she really means is, ‘please don’t cheat on me.’
“Don’t forget, don’t forget about me,” she begs, “I’m far away, but I never let you go.”
“I’m love-struck and looking out the window,” she says, searching the skies for any sign of him, as she begs him not to forget her once again.
Windows are common metaphors in Taylor’s world, and usually represent the distance between herself and the object of her desire, or the ‘window of opportunity’. Like in Come in With the Rain, she says, “I’ll leave my window open” in case her lover comes back.
Here, it symbolizes the hope that he’ll return, and the distance that he’s put between them. Will she be waiting forever, and have to just give up? Like in her later song Peter, “the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light,” because she grew tired of waiting.
Breakdown: “Wishing The Call Was From You”
Oh, sweet, teenage Taylor. This breakdown will break me down, every time.
She’s waiting for him to return, “Right here, wishing the flowers were from you / Wishing the card was from you / Wishing the call was from you.” She gets no evidence that he’s thinking about her, that he misses her, or evidence that she even matters to him at all.
“’Cause I loved you from the very first day,” she laments, but he doesn’t even give a hint that he’s ever loved her at all.
In her vault track Foolish One, we get to hear her inner monologue while she’s doing all this waiting, and it’s not a happy place to be.
Final Chorus: “When You Come Back Down”
The final chorus and outro repeat the same general sentiments: he’ll fly away, she’ll wait for him. But this time, she’ll wait “forever and ever” and she “swears” they’ll be together someday.
She’ll be waiting by the window “when you come back down,” but will he ever return to earth? Does he even remember she exists?
As we’ll learn in Foolish One, he’ll never come back down. And it’s Taylor’s heart that will fall to earth.
💜 How well do you know Speak Now? Take the Speak Now TV Lyrics Quiz! 💜
Superman Lyrics Meaning: Final Thoughts
Our 2024 world looking back on this 2010 song paints it in such a different light. To teenage Taylor, this was likely romantic and hopeful, pining away for a busy boy.
But now, we can see it for what it is: a girl, desperately in love with a boy who doesn’t even give her the time of day.
If this was truly inspired by John Mayer, Superman narrates the beginning of their relationship. Ours is the middle of the relationship, Dear John is the end, and Foolish One is hindsight.
I want to go back and hold teenage Taylor’s hand and steer her away from the bright red, flashing “caution” lights that were all over this romance from the start. But, as she said herself, “I can’t hear one single word they say.”
She wouldn’t have listened, and needed this to play out to learn the lessons she knows by heart today.
More Songs From Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)
- Mine
- Sparks Fly
- Back to December
- Speak Now
- Dear John
- Mean
- The Story of Us
- Never Grow Up
- Enchanted
- Better Than Revenge
- Innocent
- Haunted
- Last Kiss
- Long Live
- Ours
- Electric Touch (ft Fall Out Boy) [From the Vault]
- When Emma Falls in Love [From the Vault]
- I Can See You [From the Vault]
- Castles Crumbling (ft. Hayley Williams) [From the Vault]
- Foolish One [From the Vault]
- Timeless [From the Vault]
