Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream have always had different lyrics originally, it’s just that know one knew them.
The song’s co-writer, Bonnie McKee, who co-wrote the song with Perry in 2010, shared that before getting final for the chorus, the hit track had gone through several lyrical changes and versions.
“It was the most difficult to write,” Bonnie explained during a May 6 episode of The DaddyMommy Show podcast. “We wrote like five different versions to it.”
“You make me feel like I’m born again / All brand new, come on, Peter Pan,” the songwriter, who got credited alongside Katy, Max Martin and producers Benny Blanco and Dr. Luke, on the track, recalled the first version of the hook.
But the concept didn’t appeal, and after deciding that the lyrics were “too young” and “needed to be sexier,” the team went back to revisions and brainstormed a few more ideas, including one that was called Try Me On.
“It was all kind of fashion references,” Bonnie remembered. “Even though that’s a really cute idea and worth writing, it felt a little bit camp, and the song was a little more earnest.”
Eventually, the singer-songwriter skimmed “several notebooks of different versions” before getting the song’s more “nostalgic and young” lyrics in her head.
“You make me feel like I’m livin’ a teenage dream / The way you turn me on, I can’t sleep,” she wrote.
“There was something about the word teenager,” Bonnie recalled.
“I was like, ‘Teenager says so much,’ but it was too many syllables. So, we changed it to ‘teenage,’ and then it turned into ‘teenage dream.’ I was like, ‘This feels right. I solved the puzzle.'”
