SONGS THAT CAN JUST GO AWAY, part XI

     Katy Perry's "Firework" has been annoying the internet for some time now and it annoys the shit out of me too. It's not even because it's a sappy self-empowerment song, the kinds of which I've railed against before. No, what bugs me about it is the shoddily written chorus.

     At first I thought it was just another example of Katy Perry's sometimes odd enunciations (listen to "California Gurls" for a good example of this). At times it feels like she is in a competition with Celine Dion for odd vocalizations. But I digress...

     I had a difficult time understanding the chorus and did my damnedest to try to find words which fit. I should mention that this song plays at work so I've had no choice but to listen to it many, many times. The chorus sounds to the uninitiated like:

♪♫ Baby, you're a firework!

Go on show them what your worth

Make them go (unintelligible three repeated syllables)

As you shoot across the sky-y-y!

Baby, you're a firework!

Go on let your colors burst

Make them go (unintelligible three repeated syllables)

You're gonna leave going (unintelligible three different repeated syllables) ♫♪

     Now hearing "sky-y-y" I assumed the first three misunderstood syllables had to be "high" and that kinda made sense: "Make them go high, high, high // As you shoot across the sky-y-y!" But try as I might, I couldn't come up with a good rhyme scheme. "high, high, high // why-y-y?" Nah...

     Finally after many weeks of this, I managed to remember to dedicate a few moments of my uneventful life to looking up the song's lyrics. What I saw brought this song from tolerable to fuck no, I want it to just go away. Here're the actual lyrics:

♪♫ Baby, you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, "Aah, aah, aah"
As you shoot across the sky-y-y
Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make 'em go, "Aah, aah, aah"
You're gonna leave 'em all in awe, awe, awe ♫♪

     Okay, I had a few errors: "Go on" was "Come on" & "You're gonna leave them going" was actually "You're gonna leave 'em all in" Whatever. Divining lyrics is sometimes a complex art. Believe me, I know...I'm a Squeeze fan. But the rhyming couplets are what threw me. "Make them go, 'Ah, ah, ah' // As you shoot across the sky-y-y"? "Make them go, 'Ah, ah, ah' // You're gonna leave 'em all in awe, awe, awe"?

     What the fuck was that? That's just terrible. No wonder my brain couldn't figure out the lyrics. It would have never accepted such a shitty couplet. I'm pretty sure Katy Perry doesn't write her own songs so it leaves me wondering what sort of professional songwriter would've found such couplets acceptable for singing? Hell, even in written poetry they'd suck. She barely differentiates between the words too. How was anyone supposed to know what she was singing? My brain just...no, it can't.

     This song just needs to go away already...

And it's got over 450 million views...