Composition
"When I Grow Up" is an uptempo R&B and electropop song that lasts four minutes and five seconds. Built around "bouncy synth lines" and a "thudding" bassline, the song features a heavy use of sirens, handclaps and pitch-shifted vocals. Scherzinger was cited as adopting Britney Spears' breathiness against the song's sirens, shouts and "pumping beat". Jaime Gill from Yahoo Music UK described "When I Grow Up" as a "dark, dissonant club banger", while Rudy Klapper from Sputnikmusic compared the song's composition to that of Basement Jaxx's 2003 track "Plug It In". "When I Grow Up" contains a sample of the main riff of "He's Always There" by British rock band The Yardbirds, from their third studio album Roger the Engineer (1996). The song's writers, Jim McCarty and Paul Samwell-Smith, were honored for their contributions to the song at the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).
According to the sheet music published by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, "When I Grow Up" is set in common time with a tempo of 120 beats per minute. It is composed in the key of E minor, with Scherzinger's vocal range spanning from low-note of E3 to the high-note of G5. Lyrically, the song is centered around the desire to be famous when one grows up. Using satirical and autobiographical lines, Scherzinger begins the song's first verse with: "Now I've got a confession / When I was young I wanted attention". The "repetitive and catchy chorus" follows, where she sings the lines: "When I grow up / I wanna be famous / I wanna be a star / I wanna be in movies". MTV News commented that the song contains a theme that is "getting plenty of traction these days – beware the high cost of fame." Meanwhile, group member Melody Thornton said of the song's concept: "If you strive for higher and bigger things – along with that – comes hard work and dealing with a lot of stuff that you'd never assume you'd have to. So yeah, while the song is meant to be playful, it still does have that little warning twist to it". Bill Lamb from About.com named "When I Grow Up" as a possible answer song to Pink's "Stupid Girls" (2006). Music critics were initially confused by the line "I wanna have groupies" in the chorus; mistaking the line as saying "I wanna have boobies". American comedian Ellen DeGeneres also pointed this out when they performed the song on her talk show on September 23, 2008.
Read more about this topic: When I Grow Up (Pussycat Dolls Song)
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