Lady Gaga's 'Freedom Record:' Born This Way
“It’s very literal,” Lady Gaga told Billboard magazine when a reporter asked her about her single, “Born This Way.”
“I said, ‘I want to write my freedom record. I want to write my this-is-who-the-****-I-am anthem,’ but I don’t want it to be hidden in poetic wizardry and metaphors. I want it to be an attack, an assault on the issue because I think, especially in today’s music, everything gets kind of washy sometimes and the message gets hidden in the lyrical play.”
Her “Born This Way” single began six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on Feb. 26, 2011 — 15 years ago next Thursday.
The Birth of 'Born This Way'
Lady Gaga was born in Manhattan, New York, in March 1986 as Stefani Germanotta. She began taking piano lessons at age 4 and, as a teenager, was playing open mic nights at local clubs. She began using the name Lady Gaga — inspired by the 1984 Queen hit “Radio Ga Ga” — in 2006.
Her first album in 2008, “The Fame,” featured her unique mix of synth-pop, electropop and dance pop, and adding to that elements of heavy metal and disco. “The Fame” spent 193 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Albums chart and was nominated for five Grammy Awards.
The artwork for the “Born This Way” single featured Gaga wearing heavy makeup and with air-blown hair.
While on tour supporting “The Fame,” Gaga spent a lot of time with her supporting band and her backup dancers — some of whom were gay or lesbian. She decided she wanted to write an anthem that advocated self-empowerment for the LGBT community and for racial minorities. She was also inspired by a 1977 disco track by Carl Bean, “I Was Born This Way,” in which the singer proudly proclaims his homosexuality.
“Harkening back to the early ’90s, when Madonna, En Vogue, Whitney Houston and TLC were making very empowering music for women and the gay community and all kind of disenfranchised communities,” Gaga told Billboard magazine. “The lyrics and the melodies were very poignant and very gospel and very spiritual and I said, ‘That’s the kind of record I need to make.’ That’s the record that's going to shake up the industry. “It’s not about the track. It’s not about the production,” she said. “It’s about the song. Anyone could sing ‘Born This Way.’ It could’ve been anyone.”
Working with producer and songwriter Fernando Garibay and a mixtape specialist, DJ White Shadow, Gaga said she wrote “Born This Way” in about 10 minutes. “It is a completely magical message song,” she told Vogue. “And after I wrote it, the gates just opened, and the songs kept coming. It was like an immaculate conception.”
“She made it,” said DJ White Shadow. “She came up with the idea, she wrote it. She is a genius. We recorded it around the world, on the road, in whatever was available.”
Lady Gaga debuted her new track at the 2011 Grammy Awards. She was carried onto the stage by latex-wearing models. She then “hatched” from an egg and performed her song. “Born This Way” was “visually and thematically and lyrically about birthing a new race,” she explained. “Birthing a race within the race of already existing cultures of humanity — that bears no prejudice and no judgment.”
The “Born This Way” album cover portrayed Gaga transformed into a motorcycle. Critics considered it “a cheap Photoshop job.”
Her album “The Fame Monster” — featuring reissues of her 2008 debut album — won a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album later that night.
In her acceptance speech, Gaga said she was thinking of Whitney Houston when she wrote “Born This Way” and imagined Houston singing it, “because I wasn’t secure enough in myself to imagine I was a superstar,” she said.
Criticism of the track was perhaps inevitable. Radio stations in Malaysia, for example, bleeped Lady Gaga’s lyrics about “gay, straight or bi, lesbian, transgendered.” LGBT people can be arrested, jailed and beaten in that country.
And some noted the strong similarities between “Born This Way” and Madonna’s 1989 hit, “Express Yourself” — in both their subject matter and their respective chord progression. Lady Gaga pushed back on the composition, pointing out: “It's the same one that’s been in disco music for the last 50 years.”
And as for subject matter, Gaga told Jay Leno: “The good news is that I got an email from her people and her, sending me their love and complete support on behalf of the single and if the queen says it shall be, then it shall be.”
Lady Gaga's Singles Chart History
