Comradez said:

Of course.  That's a trivial point.  98% of pop songs are probably not about drugs.  What I'm specifically arguing is, this song is about psychedelics. 

Granted, unless you ask the author about the meaning of a piece of music, film, or literature, or unless the author explicitly explains in a preface, there's no way to solve the question of, "What did an author mean or intend by a particular work." 

Then in comes the critical technique known as "deconstructionism," which allows for us to talk about the ways in which a work may be coherently interpreted, regardless of the original intentions of the author.  This technique is often used in order to investigate the biases, assumptions, and sources of inspiration for the author, of which the author him/herself might not even be aware, so as to be able to say something about the author's social/cultural context.

At the very least, then, we could say that, regardless of whether Katy Perry was inspired by DMT, her song "E.T." can be coherently interpreted as being a metaphor for the DMT experience.

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eqt146 said:

Maybe the person who wrote the lyrics has done DMT, but most pop musicians don't write their own music.

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Penguarky Tunguin said:

NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT DRUGS

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Comradez said:

I don't know how many of you here have read any of Michael Hoffman's egodeath.com website, but that's partly where I'm coming from.  I found some of what he says about mystic state allusions in rock music convincing, and particularly the argument that it is naive to hold the a priori assumption that rock musicians from the '70s didn't routinely use acid. 

Consider this testimony from motorhead frontman Lemmy, for example: 
http://youtu.be/fh-pAykfQ-8

Now, I know that today is a different time, but I don't consider it so far-fetched to think that some rock and pop musicians have taken psychedelics.  I'd imagine there'd be at least a similar proportion among that pool as among the general population, and probably a lot larger of a proportion.  Consider:
*They have the money.
*I'm sure they don't have trouble obtaining the connections.
*If they are true artists who take their work seriously (and aren't just some bimbo out of the Disney corporate meatgrinder), they have the motive.
*The real artists are probably of above-average intelligence, and so probably don't accept government propaganda with such naive credulity.

So...Britney Spears?  I'm positive that dumb bitch has never done acid.  I'd even doubt it about Lady Gaga, despite all of her superficial "out there" stuff that she tries to do.  It seems to me like she's trying to hard to be shocking, and there's nothing behind it other than the desire to grab attention.  But Katy Perry....

Consider also that Katy Perry is married to Russell Brand.  Regardless of whether you think his stand-up is funny, you have to admit that he kind of fits the acid stereotype:  really skinny, eccentric.

Regardless of all of these reasons for why Katy Perry might have done psychedelics, though, the main point is that the song E.T. could very easily (most easily?) be interpreted as being about DMT or some other psychedelic...which makes me chuckle every time I walk past a department store or a bar naively playing it just to be hip. 

I think that little things like this in the culture plant seeds in our minds that contribute little by little to pushing us in certain directions--in this case, towards psychedelics.

For example, I used to play Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri a lot.  Looking bad at it now, I can see how the game's whole philosophy of "transcendence" with the sentient planet contributed in small part to my eventual interest in "transcendent" states of mind, but at the time I would have had no idea that this is where my simple playing of this silly computer game was pushing me...just as I think people are being ever-so-slightly nudged towards psychedelics by listening to this song by Katy Perry, even though they might not even consciously realize it at this point.

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Man, I lost many many hours of my life to Alpha Centauri. 

Penguarky Tunguin said:

Comradez said:

I don't know how many of you here have read any of Michael Hoffman's egodeath.com website, but that's partly where I'm coming from.  I found some of what he says about mystic state allusions in rock music convincing, and particularly the argument that it is naive to hold the a priori assumption that rock musicians from the '70s didn't routinely use acid. 

Consider this testimony from motorhead frontman Lemmy, for example: 
http://youtu.be/fh-pAykfQ-8

Now, I know that today is a different time, but I don't consider it so far-fetched to think that some rock and pop musicians have taken psychedelics.  I'd imagine there'd be at least a similar proportion among that pool as among the general population, and probably a lot larger of a proportion.  Consider:
*They have the money.
*I'm sure they don't have trouble obtaining the connections.
*If they are true artists who take their work seriously (and aren't just some bimbo out of the Disney corporate meatgrinder), they have the motive.
*The real artists are probably of above-average intelligence, and so probably don't accept government propaganda with such naive credulity.

So...Britney Spears?  I'm positive that dumb bitch has never done acid.  I'd even doubt it about Lady Gaga, despite all of her superficial "out there" stuff that she tries to do.  It seems to me like she's trying to hard to be shocking, and there's nothing behind it other than the desire to grab attention.  But Katy Perry....

Consider also that Katy Perry is married to Russell Brand.  Regardless of whether you think his stand-up is funny, you have to admit that he kind of fits the acid stereotype:  really skinny, eccentric.

Regardless of all of these reasons for why Katy Perry might have done psychedelics, though, the main point is that the song E.T. could very easily (most easily?) be interpreted as being about DMT or some other psychedelic...which makes me chuckle every time I walk past a department store or a bar naively playing it just to be hip. 

I think that little things like this in the culture plant seeds in our minds that contribute little by little to pushing us in certain directions--in this case, towards psychedelics.

For example, I used to play Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri a lot.  Looking bad at it now, I can see how the game's whole philosophy of "transcendence" with the sentient planet contributed in small part to my eventual interest in "transcendent" states of mind, but at the time I would have had no idea that this is where my simple playing of this silly computer game was pushing me...just as I think people are being ever-so-slightly nudged towards psychedelics by listening to this song by Katy Perry, even though they might not even consciously realize it at this point.

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Man, I lost many many hours of my life to Alpha Centauri. 

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ant61 said:

as far as op original question no she didnt write any of those song on that album not one,

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