Unintended Song Lyrics: Dark Horse by Katy Perry

In my last blog I broke down how Taylor Swift accidentally wrote a song about falling in love with a child molester and committing suicide. That’s the kind of thing that happens when you throw out literary references without consulting your freshman English teacher first.
Then you have songs like Katy Perry’s Dark Horse. First off, the song just sounds like shit. It’s the kind of song a pop star puts out after she’s had enough success that her handlers agree to let her write one song on her own. Perry described the song as a "juxtaposition", as it mixed her, a pop music artist, with an "urban kind of hip-hop-flavored background soundtrack"; and its’ lyrics as "witchy and dark", written from the perspective of "a witch warning a man to not fall in love with her", and if so, she would be his last. By Katy Perry’s own words, she doesn’t even know what the fuck this song is about. Every time Dark Horse comes on the radio I strain my brain trying to make sense of the lyrics and wind up with a headache. Eventually I decided the lyrics were written by an Eastern European song-writer with a poor grasp of the English language and relatives in the music industry who Katy Perry owed a favor to. Seriously, it sounds like she lost a bet and had to make a song only using the words on the board after a game of Scrabble. I don’t know what the shit Perry was trying to say; but let’s take a look at what she actually said.

I knew you were
You were gonna come to me
And here you are
But you better choose carefully
'Cause I’m capable of anything
Of anything and everything

She says she knew he was going to come to her and now that he has, he had better choose carefully. This doesn’t make sense because he already made the choice to come. Then she goes on to, not too subtly, threaten him. I guess the choice is whether or not he’s smart enough to not stick his dick in crazy.

Make me your Aphrodite
Make me your one and only
But don’t make me your enemy, your enemy, your enemy

She wants to be his Aphrodite, the Goddess of love and fertility. She wants to be worshiped and get pregnant. That sounds healthy. Then she makes another threat, using the word enemy three times. She’s like the Beetlejuice of abusive relationships. Nothing says true love like, “Love me or else.”

So you wanna play with magic
Boy, you should know whatcha falling for
Baby do you dare to do this
'Cause I’m coming atcha like a dark horse

This is the part that shoved a lyrical ice pick in my skull and forced me to deconstruct this song.
“So you wanna play with magic, you should know whatcha falling for.” Playing with magic has nothing to do with falling for someone. It might as well say, “If you voted for Obama, you better know why pancakes taste better after 2am.”
Then she jumps into her third (a + b =?) equation. “Baby do you dare to do this, ‘cause I’m coming atcha like a dark horse.” A Dark Horse is a competitor nobody expects to win. That means she doesn’t expect him to hook up with her. This line says, “I think you’re smart enough to see I have more red flags than the Russian Olympics.”

Are you ready for, ready for
A perfect storm, a perfect storm
'Cause once you’re mine, once you’re mine
There’s no going back

Bro, do you even proofread? Can anyone in the class tell me what a perfect storm is? It means everything that can go wrong has, resulting in a worst case scenario. This is not the ideal scenario to be presented with in a courting situation. Then she tells him if he rides into this perfect storm, like Mark Wahlberg and George Clooney, he will be hers, from which there is no going back.

Mark my words
This love will make you levitate
Like a bird
Like a bird without a cage
But down to earth
If you choose to walk away, don’t walk away

Birds don’t fucking levitate. I feel like I can say that without being a grammar Nazi. Also, do you need to specify a bird that isn’t in a cage? I wouldn’t say I can run like a cheetah that isn’t tied down. Then she says the bird should be down to Earth. Is this bird flying or not? Maybe she meant down to Earth as in being sensible. So she’s saying her love will make him fly like a sensible bird? I don’t know, but then she tells the bird to not walk away. Perhaps the bird is a penguin.

It’s in the palm of your hand now baby
It’s a yes or no, no maybe
So just be sure before you give it up to me
Up to me, give it up to me

Now she says the choice is his, as long as he says yes.

*She’s a beast
I call her Karma
She eat your heart out
Like Jeffrey Dahmer
Be careful
Try not to lead her on
Shawty’s heart was on steroids
'Cause her love was so strong

You may fall in love
When you meet her
If you get the chance you better keep her
She swears by it but if you break her heart
She turn cold as a freezer
That fairy tale ending with a knight in shining armor
She can be my Sleeping Beauty
I’m gon’ put her in a coma

Woo! Damn I think I love her
Shawty so bad
I’m sprung and I don’t care
She got me like a roller coaster
Turn the bedroom into a fair
Her love is like a drug
I was tryna hit it and quit it
But lil’ mama so dope
I messed around and got addicted*

This is the part where Juicy J comes in and does his rap segment so Katy Perry can tap into the urban market. Despite this verse being a word salad of random phrases, he keeps to the point of a dysfunctional relationship with a crazy woman. I don’t know how everyone involved with this song read, “She eat your heart out like Jeffrey Dahmer” and thought that line was a good idea, as well as saying he is going to put her in a coma. I will give Juicy J credit for this being the only rap verse in a pop love song where the rapper doesn’t just talk about how much money he has.

Taking all things into consideration, this song appears to be about a penguin with borderline personality disorder who is stalking a guy who isn’t interested.

Sources 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8