In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, Katy Perry chats it up with Howard Stern and Robin Quivers about the steps in creating an original song. She takes a break from talking about her exciting baby news to invite her listeners into a sneak peek of her creative process.
Perry writes her own lyrics and at times collaborates with other creators like Rihanna. She shares, however, that the initial spark to get a song going is not a poetic line for her.
"I'm a lyricist and a melody person mostly so that's where I pull my weight," she explains, "I'm really actually inspired by a beat, by the sonic landscape of something that comes to me."
She further divulges that it can take only ten seconds of a beat until ideas pop up in her head for a narrative and title of a song. Then, from the beat comes the melody. This terminology may confuse those who aren't familiar with songwriting, but watching Perry's passion when speaking about music is enough to make each viewer feel included in the conversation.
Perry goes into more precise detail, "You start humming something over it and just do it over and over. Something over the bed of music. You'll do a pass with just the melody and then usually fill in the lyrics."
Stern asks Perry if she ever gets embarrassed or feels ridiculous doing that, to which Perry draws in a long breath and responds.
"You have to dare to suck and no idea is a bad idea. You've gone through so many edits to get to this beautiful narrative."
She seems to have a thought in the back of her mind before she reveals a lyric she cut out of her chart-topping song Teenage Dream.
"It was like 'When you're a mom in a minivan' or something stupid. Like love lost and wanting to feel that spark again and have that teenage dream." Perry states that she's so glad she didn't include that lyric because of its lack of sexiness.
In terms of her newer music, the singer reveals that her song Smile went through multiple edits, so she could properly express her journey over the last two years.
Perry's new album Smile is set to drop on August 14th, 2020.