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 Perry’s Instagram, fellow “Idol” judge Luke Bryan sang the chorus of the hit song. Perry 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?” Bryan asked. Perry 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 Perry shared, she also told fellow “Idol” judge Lionel Riche that people often mess up by singing “fireworks” instead of the singular “firework.”
Perry 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!’”