Stop the Insanity

I am far from a music critic. My tastes are hardly what one might call “refined.” I have spent countless hours of my life listening to and contemplating the virtues of Rick Astley’s greatest hits.

However, when I turned on the radio this morning and was subjected to the horror known as Katy Perry’s “Firework,” even my uncouth sensibilities were grossly offended. That a song like this, whose rhyme scheme if it were written by a 2nd grader wouldn’t have gotten a grade higher than a C+, has zoomed to #1 on the iTunes chart tells a scary tale about what appeals to the average listener.
I grant that it is very easy to start decrying the downfall of music, and how popular music has lost its meaning, and that nothing popular will hold up over time, etc. Those angles have all been played out, and done so by people far more qualified to discuss them than me. No, I want to talk about Firework in particular. Several aspects and details in the song are simply confounding and, while they’re easy to understand, also lack any grounding in the English language.
The ever-insightful Katy opens the song by asking us if we “ever feel like a plastic bag.” Oh how she knows my pain! Too often am I shunned in favor of paper, and now with the green movement, I’m considered wasteful and a drain on the environment! Oh, wait. Am I a Ziploc? I do like to keep things fresh, preserving flavor better than my competitors. Apparently, her intent is to inquire if I ever consider myself to be “drifting through the wind, wanting to start again.” Start where? Maybe she couldn’t find a rhyme for “tumbleweed?” Say what you will about the simile, and the cliché, and the lack of any real rhyming, but at least here we’re dealing with something tangible here.
However, we soon leave the somewhat-tangible world of the simile and enter the muddy waters of nonsense noises. Whoever wrote this charming little ditty quickly ran out of ideas for rhymes, and left us with the very complicated pairing of “*Nonsense noise*” and “Sky-y-y” in the chorus The lesson, as always: when in doubt, just yell out a bunch of gibberish and everything will work out. I wish life were so simple. Although now that I think about it, with the doozy “boom boom boom” and “moon moon moon” that appears later on, maybe gibberish is the right avenue to take. Even the Venga Boys could do better than that.
As an aside, is it possible to even have a “firework?” When has anyone ever used the singular? If you shoot off one Roman Candle, does that constitute one firework? Or does she mean one burst? Either way, the song lyrics lacks any explicit or implicit evidence. Perhaps it’s all part of the mystique.

My last gripe is with the song’s message. Yes, I know, who hates positivity in music? Normally I like good upbeat lyrics (I defy you to find me someone who hates “Here Comes the Sun”), but Ms. Perry takes this notion of a strong, optimistic message to a preposterously transparent level. We get it, we need to love and be ourselves. That’s the key to happiness. Thanks for that really keen and unique insight. I feel so much better about myself now.
Essentially every review of both the song and the video has embraced how the song “empowers” listeners to follow this mushy, idealistic idea of personal agency and self-love. I guess my question for that is, what do these people mean by “empowers?” That word, today, is simultaneously one of the most empty and most overused in our society. Unless you’re talking about literally giving someone a sword, gun, or other weapon, “empower” doesn’t mean much.

If someone starts making fun of you, I’m not sure if telling them, “Hey, back off, I’m a firework! I’m letting my colors burst!” is going to make life any easier for you. Just a hunch. Maybe it’s just my own outlandish opinion, but to overcome huge obstacles like low self-esteem and hiding one’s true self, you’re going to need more than a low-brow pop song that nobody will remember three years from now to get out of that rut.
Other than that, though, I think this song is great!