Songfacts®:

• This is the second single by American R&B singer–songwriter Kelis, from her fifth studio album, Flesh Tone. The track is produced by DJ Ammo, and according to publicity materials, it "draws on Kelis' strengths, featuring vocals that are full of pain, desire and longing that can only come from a woman who's loved and lost many times before."
• The song's music video was directed by Kelis, John Rankin Waddell and Nicole Ehrlich and filmed in the desert outside Los Angeles. Ehrlich described it as a "spectacular array of visual stimulation seeing Kelis play dynamically upon the four elements of the universe."
• Feeling free is a topic that runs through Flesh Tone, and on this song about love that can't be matched, Kelis addresses it specifically. "That record, like most of the records on the album, is about, there's a freedom in surrender and just... love, and life and baby," said Kelis to MTV News, whose son, Knight, was born on July 22nd 2009. "Fireworks is to me a great way to explain something, like, magnificent."
• This thumping electro-house track is typical of Kelis' move to a more dance-based sound. The singer explained to Natalie Rotman of The Associated Press why she went from creating R&B hits like 'Milkshake' to an all-dance album. Said Kelis: "I felt like everything started to go in the same direction. I hate to toot my horn, but if you look at where music was as far females and what's Top 40 radio and whatever, where it was before 'Milkshake,' versus after, I mean you kind of have to be retarded to deny that it literally changed female vocalists. So for me, it was just about wanting to party again."