The singer also gave an update on her next album.
Sometimes the darkest times inspire the brightest blooms. That’s definitely the case with Katy Perry‘s latest ray of sunshine through the black clouds single, “Daisies.”
The song, which dropped on Friday morning (May 15), is an anthem about surviving the slings and arrows and rising up triumphantly, even after haters try to bury you.
The soon-to-be-mom dialed in to Apple Music host Zane Lowe’s “New Music Daily” show — the full episode will be available here at noon on Friday — to talk about the bleak origins of the song, as well as where her mind is when it comes to her next album.
“I wrote this song just like it’s another anthem for myself. I came out of a pretty dark time on 2017’s] Witness and I’ve been writing a record for two years,” she said.
Perry added, “I wrote some of it while I was clinically depressed and trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel. And when I’m writing songs like ‘Firework’ or ‘Roar,’ it’s not because I’m feeling hunky dory. It’s literally because I am having really dark thoughts and trying to come out of it. And my soul sends a message to my intellect, to my head. It says, ‘You’re going to get through it. You’ve gotten through it before. And here’s a nugget of inspiration, how you’re going to do it.’ And it becomes a song and ‘Daisies’ was just a nugget of inspiration for me to go, look, I don’t need to change. I will stay true to my past.”
The lesson learned is that Perry will stay consistent when it comes to her musical brand as she keeps pushing herself musically and try to grow as a human being. The song has taken on a fresh meaning during the COVID-19 quarantine period, giving Katy time to reflect and think about all the things we take for granted. “Hopefully, when we all get out of this, we will appreciate and be grateful for our freedom,” she said. “And we will go after life like never before knowing that it can be taken all away.”
Perry said she dove deep into how losing the kind of mass validation she was used to drove her into a dark hole for more than two years, during which she did some “heavy, emotional, psychological lifting.” All of that reflection made her re-consider her plans for her upcoming album, which she’s still trying to figure out.
“I have this body of work and there was a question of, do I wait until next year? And I was like, one thing is for certain, I’m having a child this summer,” she said of the baby she’s expecting with longtime love Orlando Bloom. “My whole life is about to change and I’m sure I will have a whole new access to different emotions I never had, and will be able to write from, so I’m going to write a whole ‘nother record probably when that happens.”
As someone who has owned a summer or two, Perry said she knows that the hot weather months are when people want to dance and have fresh pop tunes, something uplifting and inspirational. “And I like being associated with those,” she said. “It comes from a dark place, but we’re all going through this same weird tunnel and we’re starting to see light at the end of it, but we don’t know how many tunnels there’s going to be this year. So I have this music. It’s done. Yes. All is good.”
Capitol Records recently confirmed an Aug. 14 release date for the as-yet-untitled album. Perry said she and her team have had to pivot a bit and get “super innovative” with the videos, which she wants to be more than just her in her living room. “How do I look back at this time and not have it live in such a time capsule? Because I think we’ll be grateful for this time to be over and what will live on outside of quarantine times.”
Check out the full interview and the “Daisies” video below.
