"When I Grow Up" is a dance-pop song written by American songwriters Rodney Jerkins, Theron Thomas and Timothy Thomas, and produced by Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins for the Pussycat Dolls' sophomore studio album Doll Domination. Released as the album's lead single on May 27, 2008, the song has peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, giving the group their fourth top ten single on the chart. The music video won the award for "Best Dancing in a Video" at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, and was nominated for an additional five awards, including "Video of the Year".

Background and production

"When I Grow Up" samples the main riff from The Yardbirds song "He's Always There" off their 1966 studio album Roger the Engineer, and as a result, British songwriters Jim McCarty and Paul Samwell-Smith have received writing credits for the song. The song was digitally released on May 27 on Amazon, and iTunes. The Pussycat Dolls debuted the song on the Jimmy Kimmel Live on May 20, and have also performed it at the 2008 MTV Movie Awards on June 1, on the American dance show So You Think You Can Dance on June 12, 2008,The MTV Asia Awards on August 2, 2008, The Today Show on August 28, 2008, at Fashion Rocks 5 on September 5th 2008 , on the German game-show Schlag den Raab on September 13th 2008,in the UK For One Night Only on September 14th 2008 , GMTV on September 16, 2008, at the Vodafone Live Music Awards on September 18th 2008, on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on September 23rd 2008 , and on "Wal-Mart Soundcheck" at the Wal-Mart website.

The song is the first single since the 2008 departure of Carmit Bachar, who had served the longest time with the Dolls since their inception as a burlesque dance crew in 1995. The song is notable for being their first single to feature a more dance-pop and synthpop sounds as opposed to their earlier singles with greater rhythmic and urban influences. As with previous singles, Scherzinger sings the lead as well as backing vocals, also contributing additional background vocals by Thornton. However for the video and radio edit, the other dolls re-recorded backing vocals.

On June 14, a remix was made and released to the U.S. Mainstream for radio airplay. "When I Grow Up (I Wanna Be)" was released the day after the original "When I Grow Up" song made its video premiere on June 13 on FNMTV. The song was said to be released on September 2.

On July 24, a remix of the song leaked onto the internet. It is the official remix featuring Fatman Scoop, Diddy, Lil Wayne and Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins. The song starts off sampling Michael Jacksons song "Thriller". On the same day another remix leaked, it features Eve.