 " Poison " is an up @-@ tempo electropop and dance @-@ pop song produced by RedOne , BeatGeek and Jimmy Joker . It was written by Scherzinger , Bilal Hajji , Kinda Hamid , Novel Jannusi , Achraf Jannusi , RedOne in the musical key of A @-@ minor . With a guitar @-@ driven melody , " Poison " uses a pulsating and toxic beat throughout , which is similar to that used in the Britney Spears song , " Toxic " . The lyrics were also compared to " Toxic " and said to have similar themes , according to BBC Music blogger , Fraser McAlpine . A reviewer from Rap @-@ Up spoke of the song 's overall theme . " The lead Pussycat Doll has thoughts of using a deadly elixir on the dance floor , singing through a fuzzy filter over bombastic synthesizers . " They described the song as a " toxic pop gem " . According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Sony / ATV Music Publishing , the song has a time signature set in common time , with a tempo of 124 beats per minute . The melody is mainly composed with piano and guitar instruments . 
