If you’ll recall, Katy Perry is having a baby girl. We first learned this via her music video for “Never Worn White,” an ode to her fiancé, Orlando Bloom, which dropped in March — and back then, Perry promised it was going to be a “jam packed summer.” She made good on that by dropping “Daisies,” a vibey new track, at midnight (May 15).
On it, Perry’s blissed out, though the production suggests a slight return to her clubby hits of the early 2000s. There’s a cool moment at the end of the chorus where she sings the title word three times, and on the final turn, her voice crackles into a blur of electronic echoes. What’s missing is a massive backbeat — but that’s replaced here by an overall empowering feeling, made good by the actual shots in the video.
The clip itself is straightforward: Katy, the mom-to-be, is one with nature, standing in a field of daisies or stripping naked and showing off her baby bump near a rushing waterfall. By the end, she’s standing tall overlooking some rustic vistas. On Twitter, Perry said she wrote it a few months ago as “a call to remain true to the course you’ve set for yourself, regardless of what others may think. Recently, it has taken a new meaning for me, in light of what the whole world is experiencing.”
“I hope it will be the soundtrack to going for your dreams now… especially the ones we left behind,” she added.
A popular (if fringe) fan theory had circulated ahead of the “Daisies” release suggesting that Perry recruited pal Taylor Swift to appear either on the track or in the music video — an idea seemingly boosted by an Instagram photo of Swift wearing a top decorated in, yep, daisy patterns. It would be Swift returning the favor for Perry appearing in her “You Need to Calm Down” clip last year. Swift is nowhere to be found here, but neither is anyone else — this is Perry’s video, her statement, and her moment.
“Daisies” is the second tune from Perry this year, though she also dropped three songs in 2019: “Never Really Over,” “Small Talk,” and “Harleys in Hawaii.”
She even slid into select fans’ Zoom watch parties to celebrate the video release. You can celebrate, too, by checking out the vid above.