Beautiful (written by Linda Perry)
“I wrote the song based on being extremely insecure, and not feeling that you’re good enough, or not pretty enough, or not smart enough, and hearing too many people tell you those things, and it finally effecting you to a point where you just think you’re ugly and pointless. So I wrote that song because that’s how I felt. Even beautiful people like Christina may be insecure inside [and have imperfections in other ways – Ed].”Linda Perry (80)
I’m OK
“This song is about my childhood. I’ve spoken very openly about growing up in a house where there was a lot of abuse. There was a lot of domestic violence and seeing what my mom went through, what I went through as a child, you know not feeling like I had a safe place to go home to. That can stick with you for many many years past the moment. The positive about this is it’s taking the sad and the ugly and the past and the pain and it made me so determined that I would not back down for anybody. I’d never feel helpless to a man, I would make for myself and nothing was going to stop me or get in my way. Seeing my mom really helpless at certain moments was really hard. There’s a moment in the song when I sing, “Strength is my mother for all the love you gave,” and she ended up leaving my father and I am so thankful for that because I’m not sure if she or I would have…I don’t know what would have happened if she had stayed. All I know is it takes real strength to leave a situation like that when you have nothing. She had no job to fall back on, no money to provide for us. But she left anyway because she knew it was only going to hurt us rather than help us to stay in a situation like that. This song is called “I’m OK” but there are still many scars that I battle with on a day to day basis.”Christina Aguilera (80)
Dirrty
“‘Dirrty’ is my “I don’t give a fuck song” and I needed to release all the repression and all of the sexual energy I was feeling as a woman, and as a female there is nothing wrong with expressing that. It’s very important we are never shamed for expressing our sexuality or never ridiculed or criticized or labelled which, as women, we tend to be. It’s a really important thing for me because through the ages, through history, we’ve been shamed for it and ridiculed. And women, we’re beautiful and if we want to be a little sexy, or get a little dirty there’s nothing wrong with that.”Christina Aguilera (80)