Wrecking Ball

Cyrus had no part in writing this song, but there was very real emotion behind it: she was going through problems in her relationship with the actor Liam Hemsworth, and the couple would split up not long after. Some songwriters write specifically for an artist and try to relate it to her specific circumstance, but that wasn't the case here. The lyric was written by the Detroit singer-songwriter MoZella (Maureen Anne McDonald), who also co-wrote Fergie's "A Little Party Never Killed Nobody (All We Got)" with Goonrock for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby movie. MoZella had just gone through a devastating breakup and channeled that into the song. It happened to sync perfectly with what Cyrus was going through: giving your all for love, but getting wrecked in return.

This was written in two parts. The musical underpinnings for the chorus came from a writing session with MoZella and guitarist, songwriter and producer Kiyanu Kim at his New York City studio. The song then came together in a single songwriting session that took place September 24, 2012 among MoZella, Sacha Skarbek and Stephan Moccio. Skarbek is a British songwriter who played a key role in the development of James Blunt, including co-penning the Worldwide #1 hit, "You're Beautiful"; Moccio is a Canadian composer whose credits include Celine Dion's 2002 hit "A New Day Will Come" and Nikki Yanofsky's official theme of CTV's 2010 Winter Olympics coverage "I Believe." In our interview with Moccio, he explained: "MoZella was extremely emotional that day. She was very frail because she had broken off her wedding during that week. She almost didn't end up making the session. 'Wrecking Ball' in every way is about MoZella's toxic relationship and then the courage to say, 'I can't go through with this.'" So here we are, Sacha and I holding this girl together who was just very emotional, trying to comfort her." "We all wanted a strong metaphor as a title and we were just throwing out words," he added. "I remember kind of shyly putting up my hand and saying, 'What about 'Wrecking Ball'?' And Sacha went, 'Yeah, 'Wrecking Ball,' that sounds good.' And MoZella kind of ran with that. It's when she got the line, 'I came in like a wrecking ball.' It was real collaborative."

This song was written for Beyoncé, but when it was finished, MoZella suggested she send the demo to Cyrus, deeming her a better fit. MoZella had been working on some other songs for Cyrus, so she was albe to get her ear. When Cyrus heard it, she loved the song.