Katy Perry looks back on her whirlwind life over the past few years in her latest music video “Wide Awake.” The song, which Katy has said was the “perfect” end to her Teenage Dream era references former hit singles “Firework,” “California Gurls” and “Teenage Dream” as well as her relationship with ex-husband Russell Brand.
“Another one in the can, bye guys!” Katy says in the intro before she walks off the set of her “California Gurls” music video.
As she takes off her pink cotton candy-like wig and exchanges it for a purple one, Katy gets serious. Stuck in a maze trying to find her way through, the video is a metaphor for Katy’s ups and downs over the past year.
Perry told MTV News that the images and light-to-dark concept of the video showcases these hard times.
“Obviously, there’s some kind of vague symbolism with me eating the strawberry and taking a bite of all that sweetness and ending up in the hospital,” she said. “The whole time there’s the younger version of me leading me through. Of course there has been a lot of things that went on last year that I had to get through and overcome and obstacles that I had to go through.”
She went on to explain that fans can expect to see all this in her upcoming film Katy Perry: Part of Me.
“Sometimes there were hard moments, and you see that in the movie. There’s literally a moment where I have to drag myself onstage. I’m bending over, very upset, trying not to make my false eyelashes come off,” she said. “I just kind of throw myself on this lift, which I got on every night for my show.”
The video ends on a positive note as Katy kicks her old Prince Charming to the curb and the darkness is replaced with sunshine, butterflies and flowers.
“When things get tough you have to remember where you came from and why you wanted to achieve this dream,” she reflected.
- Annie Reuter CBS Local
