Firework

As of 2017, the song has a sold a total of 7.1 million copies in the United States.

Tor Erik Hermansen:

Katy basically sat down and wrote the top line to that song together with Ester Dean in a short time. At the end of the night she said, “Let’s record the song tomorrow,” and we said, “No no no, can’t we just lay down a rough scratch vocal tonight, just so we have something to listen to?” In 10 minutes she sang the song two or three times, and we pieced the vocals together. I would say 95 percent of what you hear on the finished record is from that demo. She had played us a couple of the other songs that were going on [2010’s Teenage Dream], like “California Gurls,” and they were obviously huge smashes. But we also knew that she was a better singer than a lot of people thought at the time, and we wanted to highlight that. One of the things we told her was, “We’re not going to do any harmonies, we’re not going to do any fancy vocal takes, it’s just going to be you singing it raw.” I think it’s one of her finest performances, because she wasn’t thinking, she wasn’t trying to be perfect, it was just from the heart. She really took the lead on writing that song. We had no idea it was going to become [such an anthem] when she wrote it. I like that it’s about being yourself. A lot of times you just end up writing about relationships, but this had that inspirational message to it. And the video is brilliant, highlighting people of different races and different sexualities. It was a really great moment to be a part of. I actually went a few months ago to my kid’s school, they have these Friday gatherings, and they sang the song. It still means a lot to people who probably weren’t even born when the song came out."

Mikkel Storleer Eriksen:

She’s a really good writer. That’s what makes it all worthwhile. You know you’ve succeeded when you can create something that goes on to live its own life and actually mean something to someone."

Via EW