Hot N Cold

This tale of a neurotic ex-boyfriend is about a real guy - an ex-boyfriend Katy Perry could never get a read on. Said Perry, "One day this person would send me a text and I would be so thrilled about it because I had been waiting for some kind of sign - a smoke signal. He would be all interested and then I would just lose him, or one day he would want to see me and then one day he wouldn't. I didn't know what was wrong with him, if he was bipolar, or if he was wearing a mood ring. I took the theme and the song kind of spilled out of me."

Perry wrote this song with the hitmakers Dr. Luke and Max Martin, with Luke producing. The song is from Perry's debut pop album, One Of The Boys, released in 2008 a few years after she gave up on gospel. It helped define her as a colorful singer with a boisterous and very catchy sound. Max Martin and Dr. Luke were the right guys for the job - their other hits include "Since U Been Gone" by Kelly Clarkson and "U And Ur Hand" by Pink.

"Hot n Cold" was Perry's second single, following her #1 hit "I Kissed a Girl" (also produced by Dr. Luke). It peaked at #3 in the US but topped the charts in many countries, including Germany (where it stayed at #1 for eight weeks), Canada, Holland, Russia and Turkey. It's was what the music media call a "halo hit," meaning it was released by a new artist soon after an initial hit. This was the early days of digital distribution, which made it possible to follow up a hit song very quickly, record companies didn't have to send out physical copies.