Katy Perry's 'The One That Got Away' Is No. 1 in the Philippines Again, via a TikTok Trend

'The One That Got Away' is a sad song with the happiest beat on Katy Perry's most successful album, and the most-liked comment under its video, at 110,000 likes, says exactly that. On 19 September, fifteen years after its release, it was No. 1 on YouTube's weekly chart in the Philippines, No. 1 on the daily chart in Indonesia, and in the top five in Malaysia on both. Nothing about the song had changed. Something about how people use it had.

The question this piece follows is how a 2011 ballad ends up at the top of three Southeast Asian charts in September 2026. The answer starts in April, with a TikTok trend, and it says something about what a song has to be to survive a meme.

'The One That Got Away' in five points

• The lyric is a first love remembered in specific things: a Mustang, a band, matching tattoos, a rooftop. The chorus imagines another life in which she would have made him stay.
• The beat is bright and fast, 136 beats per minute by a detector, in E major. The words are the opposite, which is what the top comments notice.
• The 2011 video, directed by Floria Sigismondi with Diego Luna as the lover, shows an elderly Perry remembering the man she lost in a car accident.
• In April 2026 a TikTok trend, in which people list the top five horror-movie moments of their past, used the song as its soundtrack, and it returned to charts worldwide.
• It has 1.14 billion YouTube views and it re-entered the UK top 40 at No. 33 for the first time in more than 14 years.

What do the lyrics of 'The One That Got Away' mean in English?

The full lyric is on Spotify and Apple Music; we do not copy it here, and what follows is what it says, in English, in order. The phrase itself is English for the person you should have kept, and the song is a list of the reasons this one qualified. The first verse is built from small proofs of a real relationship. They met the summer after school and kissed in his Mustang to Radiohead. On her 18th birthday they got matching tattoos. They stole liquor from his parents and climbed onto the roof to talk about a future they had no clue how to plan. The verse ends on the line that gives the game away: she never planned to lose him.

'The One That Got Away' chorus meaning: another life

The chorus is a fantasy in the conditional. In another life she would be his girl, they would keep their promises, it would be the two of them against the world, and she would make him stay so that she would never have to call him the one who got away. Nothing in it is bitter. It is a wish set in a different world, which is why so many people can sing it about someone else, and why it is the mirror image of ROSÉ's 'new trick', which treats the same heartbreak as a party trick.

'The One That Got Away' verse 2 and bridge meaning: the tattoo, the records, the price

The second verse moves to the present. She compares them to June and Johnny Cash, a couple who did not exist apart, and says that when she misses him she puts those records on. Then the news arrives in gossip: someone said he had his tattoo removed, and she heard he was singing the blues downtown. She accepts it is time to deal with it and that she is no longer his muse. The bridge is the confession. All her money cannot buy a time machine and no number of rings can replace him, and she should have told him what he meant to her. Now she pays the price.

The 2011 video for 'The One That Got Away': an old woman remembers

The video was directed by Floria Sigismondi and premiered in November 2011, according to Wikipedia. It stars Perry and Diego Luna, and it tells the story in reverse: an elderly woman looks back on a lost first love with an artist boyfriend, a story that ends with his death in a car accident. The comments read it closely. One, with 6,900 likes, notices that she is driving the same car as her boyfriend, restored and kept for all those years, and calls it sad. The official channel now carries a 4K remaster, and in April 2026 Perry released an extended director's cut with new scenes and narration by Stevie Nicks, according to Official Charts.

The trend behind 'The One That Got Away': the top five horror-movie moments of your past

In April 2026, TikTok users began posting videos listing their top five horror-movie moments, the worst chapters of their own past, with this song underneath. Others used it for nostalgic reflections. Official Charts describes both uses, and says Perry joined in herself. The song re-entered the UK top 40 on 5 May at No. 33, its first appearance there in more than 14 years. It reached No. 23 on the Billboard Global 200, and on 6 May Spotify counted 80 million monthly listeners for Perry, an all-time high for her, according to the song's Wikipedia entry. In the Philippines it entered the Billboard Philippines Hot 100 at No. 90 in the chart dated 11 April, Perry's first appearance there since the chart began in July 2024.

Southeast Asia is where the song lasted. Billboard Philippines describes it as a heartbreak anthem long tied to the idea of the right person at the wrong time, and says heartfelt covers helped it back onto social media. That fits the charts we read: it is at the top in the Philippines and Indonesia and in the top five in Malaysia, five months after the trend began. Our global music trends tracking shows what else is moving in the region.

How 'The One That Got Away' sounds: the film goes quiet, the song does not

We cut the video's audio into eight equal slices of about 36 seconds and measured each one against the loudest.

The shape is a pop record inside a film. The video runs 4 minutes 50 seconds and the song 3 minutes 47, so the extra minute is most likely the film's opening and ending, and the quiet first and last slices, at 33 and 9, are where it sits. From the first verse to the last chorus the level barely leaves 71 to 100. The sadness is in the words only. That is what the 110,000-like comment, and a 7,900-like one that says the beat sounds happy to hide the lyric, are noticing: the arrangement never softens to match.

What the comments do with 'The One That Got Away'

The comments are a time capsule. Six of the 40 most-liked say when they wrote: after eight years, seven years later, in 2019, in 2022 and, twice, in 2026. Two are aimed at the director's cut, and the biggest ones are about the contrast between sound and words: the definition of enjoying the music when you are happy and understanding the lyrics when you are not, at 44,000 likes, and a line that no one deserves to relate to this song, at 23,000. A trend that asks for the worst moments of your past does not need new words. It needs a song that can carry a grim joke on top and a real ache underneath.

Where 'The One That Got Away' stands

The song came out on 30 September 2011 as the sixth single from Teenage Dream, written by Katy Perry, Dr. Luke and Max Martin and produced by Dr. Luke and Max Martin. It reached No. 3 on the US Hot 100, No. 2 in Canada and No. 18 in the UK, and it is five times platinum in the United States. By July 2026 it had 1.7 billion Spotify streams and 1.1 billion YouTube views, according to Wikipedia. On 19 September the video had 1.14 billion views and 5.4 million likes. On YouTube's charts it is No. 1 on the weekly list in the Philippines, No. 1 on the daily list in Indonesia, and in the top five of both lists in Malaysia.

So why did an old ballad come back? Because it holds two moods that the internet likes to hold at once: a beat you can dance to and a loss you cannot. The other pop answer to heartbreak is to make it a party trick; this song does not get over anything. It keeps the happiest beat and the saddest words side by side, and after fifteen years, a lot of people still have someone who fits.