Legendary Lovers

Album: Prism (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • This mystical love song finds Perry describing the eternal passion between herself and her beau as well as namechecking legendary lovers Egyptian Queen Cleopatra and Shakespeare's tragic heroine, Juliet. She sings on the chorus:

    "Take me down to the river
    Underneath the blood-orange sun
    Say my name like a scripture
    Keep my heart beating like a drum."

    Perry penned the song in her hometown of Santa Barbara with her frequent collaborators, Bonnie McKee, Henry Walter, Max Martin and Dr. Luke.
  • The dreamy EDM-lite tune features Indian percussion and lyrics focusing on Eastern religious concepts such as infinity and karma. "I think that we had a lot of fun on 'Legendary Lovers,'" Bonnie McKee told MTV News. "I feel like I was able to pull a lot of imagery from really early [Eastern-influenced] stuff that I did [when I was a kid and young songwriter], and it was a lot of fun to get into the Bollywood sort of theme 'cause I know she's always had an obsession with that to. I think they're pretty classic themes that she goes over. When you're writing love songs, it's always forever; they seem to always last throughout time."

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