Katy Perry Acquires Demonic Scorpion Tail In “Watch It Burn” Video

Katy Perry is burning it all down on her new single, aptly titled “Watch It Burn.” You might be wondering how she is doing that — maybe with some matches or a Molotov cocktail? Nope. She’s using her newly grown scorpion tail.

“Watch It Burn” is the follow-up to last fall’s “Bandaids.” In the video for the latter, she suffers a series of horrible Final Destination-like accidents. Somehow, she survives them all and is last seen smoking a cigarette outside a gas station. Although that’s definitely illegal, it was a hint for what was to come in this new single. “Gonna try to forgive and forget/ Light a cigarette/ And watch it burn,” she sings during the song’s chorus, embracing a new era of cigarette-obsessed pop.

Oddly enough, I have many thoughts on this new Perry era, specifically how the video ends in a kind of baptism. In the visual, she wreaks havoc on an innocent town with her sleek, pointed tail. At the end, she enters a church where her tail is vanquished and she is thrown into a bath of holy water on the altar. I can’t help but wonder what this might mean, whether it connects to her Christian rock beginnings, or if this is a literal spiritual rebirth or an artistic one.

Watch the Christian Breslauer-directed video below.