Katy Perry is setting the record straight on one of her most famous songs.
The singer revealed on Sunday’s episode of American Idol that people have been incorrectly singing the words to her 2010 hit Firework for, well, forever.
In a clip shared on Katy’s Instagram, fellow Idol judge Luke Bryan sang the chorus of the hit song. Katy looked ever-so-slightly annoyed and corrected the country singer after he omitted a few words.
“It’s not ‘up, up, up,’ and it’s not ‘ahh, ahh, ahh,’” she told him.
“Well, what is it then? ’Cause I’ve been dying to know all these years,” he replied, somewhat sarcastically.
“It’s ‘awe, awe, awe.’ A-W-E,” she said, literally spelling it out for him.
“Is that a word in the dictionary?” Luke asked. Katy confirmed it was.
“It’s ‘awe, awe, awe,’ everybody. Get it right!” she said, staring into the camera.
In an exchange not seen in the clip Katy shared, she also told fellow Idol judge Lionel Riche that people often mess up by singing “fireworks” instead of the singular “firework.”
She later posted the clarification on her Instagram for all to see.
“FOR THE OFFICIAL RECORD,” she wrote, “It is AWE not UP. It is FIREWORK not FIREWORKSSS.”
She also included a “Swipe ➡️ for proof” line in her caption, highlighting a time she explained that Firework was inspired by a famous line in Jack Kerouac’s 1951 novel On The Road:
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’”
So now you know.