Christina Aguilera on "Fighter"

I wrote this for my sophomore album, Stripped, and I was very determined for it to reflect who I was. The first record was what the label wanted and created. There was a huge pop explosion at the time and I was part of that wave. I felt stifled. I was thankful that the early success allowed me the freedom to write what I wanted for the next one.

I was 21 and I had a lot on my mind. I had been performing in front of an audience since I was 6, helping to make a living for my family. I grew up in a very chaotic and abusive home where I didn’t feel very safe. I started writing music, both melodies and lyrics, when I was 15. In retrospect, I realize I used it as a release, a therapeutic outlet. It was the way I found my voice. I connected with the music and escaped from my home life. In school, I was somewhat alienated because of my passion for music. So I harbored a little personal pain but the seemingly negative things made me smarter and stronger. I took notice early of the people all around me in the business who were there for the wrong reasons.

I wrote “Fighter” when I was on tour promoting the first CD. I was coming up with titles and ideas and deciding what I wanted to write about. I had to sit down and make sense of my feelings and experiences. I learned a lot from the first record that helped me to develop. I took the good and the bad and considered some of the choices I made and became better because of it.

I called the CD Stripped because I wanted to strip away the pieces of myself from the first record that I felt weren’t me. I was searching for truth. We can all look at our pasts, childhoods, home lives and it’s easy to be a victim or victimize yourself  -- but I didn’t want to do that. I was feeling lots of pent up emotions and they all came to a head in “Fighter.”