You've Got To Earn Your Leather In This Part of Town

Lady Gaga - Born This Way - 2011

Lady Gaga certainly earns her leather with her third record Born This Way. It comes in the form of a straitjacket, but then, most geniuses happen to also be total nutters, so you know, no holds barred. Born This Way is perhaps the most eclectic mix of songs since Madonna's greatest hits. The Elton John-esque rock ballad "Yoü and I" started making its rounds last year, you've heard the "Express Yourself"-inspired title track a million times already, and the schizophrenic tug-o-war that was "Judas" caused religious rallies from coast to coast. More recently, Gaga unleashed the power-pop perfection of "The Edge of Glory", which featured Clarence Clemons with a face-melting sax solo. Fashion fans might also remember Gaga's promotion through Nicola Formichetti's Thierry Mugler fashion shows this season, with the Berlin "Scheiße"-show and a remixed "Government Hooker" both featuring in Paris this season. 

Thankfully (or not, depending on how open you are to variety), the remaining tracks on Born This Way are no less consistent in their genres. "Americano" is the update of The Fame Monster's "Alejandro", but perhaps from Alejandro's perspective this time around, featuring Spanish guitars and brass instrumentation, as well as some great harmonizing and gunshots. I could see it fitting in nicely with a modernized rendition of Dirty Dancing. "Bloody Mary" is fittingly named, with the sound of the song indicating a virgin with blood on her hands, clearly going mad, with priests singing in chorus in the background. "Black Jesus + Amen Fashion" is sounding kinda 80s, "Highway Unicorn (Road To Love)" is sounding kinda 90s. Surprisingly, "Heavy Metal Lover" is not a heavy metal song (this role is filled by "Electric Chapel"), but is perhaps the sequel to The Fame Monster's "Dance in the Dark" (My favorite off that record, by the way. "Americano" stole my heart here. And then "Heavy Metal Lover" ate it). Oh, and let's not forget, on the two-disc edition, you also get the country version of "Born This Way".


There are a number of themes threaded through the record, with the strongest ones being no big surprise: religion, love for yourself and others for their individuality. But the religious message is not quite what the American Catholic League seems to be interpreting it as (is that even what they're called? I'm snatching at straws here). Judas isn't actually Judas, Mary isn't actually Mary, and Jesus isn't really Jesus. In fact, they are metaphors (surprise!). So what is the not-so-Virginal Gaga preaching to her loyal following of Little Monsters? In all it's non-sacrilegious, uncontroversial glory: Pop culture as religion.

Kind of anticlimactic, right? Well, at least given all those vehement haters claiming she's an Illuminati who's trying to take over the world with the power of Satan or whatever. I mean, yes, she is taking over the world. But she's promoting love, sax solos, and freaking unicorns. (Regardless of what religion you're following, are you seriously going to mount the claim that God hates unicorns? Ke$ha even had to put a disclaimer in her music video for "Blow" to assure everyone that "No unicorns were harmed in the making of this video". There's like, laws against this shit, they're an endangered species, you know.) Before Gaga, I'd never been religious about anything but the Spice Girls, so perhaps I'm a little biased. But in all honesty, take your holy books, discrimination, and halos. I find the image of an honest nutcase bottle-blond in a meat dress riding a unicorn with a disco stick sceptre and a lobster hat while preaching peace and love way more appealing.

Song order is quite pivotal here as well, I think. You get the sense of an actual journey, whereby Gaga traverses the roads of love and hate, peace and rebellion, failure and success, life and death. It is the final three tracks that bring you the most positive feelings though. In "Heavy Metal Lover", she heartbreakingly sings "I could be your girl girl girl girl girl girl, but would you love me if I ruled the world world world?" questioning whether she can have both true love and true greatness, or if they are mutually exclusive paths. With "The Queen", we see Gaga finally embracing the fame and love that is given to her freely by her fans (not to be confused with the fame she has manufactured for herself), and promising to be for them what they want her to be. "Yoü and I" brings hope for the lonely queen in the castle, and challenges the notion that you can never go home again. This all culminates in "The Edge of Glory", wherein Gaga has reached a point of near self-actualization as it were, achieving her fame, the adoration of her fans, and the individual love that she worried she might never receive. 


I'm not sure if one can make the judgement that Gaga isn't already glory manifest, but if she still has doubts, I don't want to abate them. Everytime I hear "The Edge of Glory" this image pops into my head of a dock built many years ago. The wood is old, but not well-worn by any means. Suddenly, you reach a point where the dock clearly ended at one point. Through the mist, you can see a sign that reads "The Edge of Glory". Carved into it are random things like "Elvis was here. Uh huhhhhhh". But the dock continues after this point. It is not well-made anymore, it is rickety, falling apart in places, the roughly cut boards hanging on by single nails. There are massive rocks leaping from the water on either side of your path. You keep following it into the fog, careful not to fall off the crooked, narrow path. Eventually you hear a strange pounding noise. It throbs in your head, faster than your resting heartbeat, and you are urged to "hurry up, Franklin". The mist starts to clear a little, and in the distance you see the source of the noise: a minuscule blonde woman relentlessly sledge hammering a mountain that stands directly in the way of her fragile but determined path. There is a standard tied to her back, flailing in the occasional breath of wind. It is bright red and declares "The Edge of Glory".

Lady Gaga is a perfectionist, which ironically carries with it the fact that she will never see herself as perfect. She may reach the edge of glory time and time again, but in her own mind, this concept of glory will forever be a carrot hanging on a string just beyond her reach. What is great and entertaining for us though, is that despite perfection being unattainable, perfectionists will continue to strive for it, so Lady Gaga will be reaching, and clawing, and stretching for it until the end of her days. Which will make for all manner of ridiculously wonderful things on which to feast our eyes, ears, hearts, and minds ( And other bodily orfices. I mean this seriously. Lady Gaga's bluffing with her muffin no longer. She wants your whiskey mouth all over her blond south.).

If you look at each song individually, it looks almost as if they don't fit together at all. I mean, who in their right mind would put a sax solo on the same record as an industrial Berlin club thumper? What kind of artist makes the cover of their record a picture of themselves melded into a motorcycle? What sane person would writhe about in what looks like a mass of colourful unicorn bogies in a music video? Well, no one. Which strengthens my overarching point here, being that Lady Gaga is a complete mental. But the day this woman goes to see an effective therapist is the day I lose all faith in pop music.

Psychosexual, pseudo-religious brilliance, for the win.

Peace, love, and floating,
Gill Ford