Mean to Me is a Tin Pan Alley standard composed by Fred Ahlert with lyrics by Roy Turk, published in 1929. It emerged from their prolific late-1920s collaboration, which also produced I'll Get By (As Long As I Have You), and stands alongside Ahlert's other enduring standards such as I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter and Walkin' My Baby Back Home. The composition is a torch song whose lyrics cleverly shift the meaning of the title phrase from unkindness to romantic devotion, while the melancholy melody rises and falls with emotional expressiveness over a harmonically sophisticated foundation featuring an unusually inventive bass line for its era. Ruth Etting's 1929 recording was a major hit, selling over a million copies, and Ben Bernie and His Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra had recorded it even earlier that year. The song became one of the most widely covered standards in American popular music, with Billie Holiday's celebrated 1937 version with Teddy Wilson's orchestra transforming it into an essential piece of the jazz repertoire, investing it with a depth of emotional expression that became permanently identified with the song. Lester Young's 1946 recording with Nat King Cole and Buddy Rich offered another landmark jazz interpretation. The tune's melodic structure has made it a particularly rewarding vehicle for improvisation, ensuring its continued presence in jazz performances across the decades.
