Lady Gaga’s “Perfect Illusion” is already No. 1 on Genius with more than 1,500+ simultaneous viewers at the moment. I got verified lyrics from Gaga.

Thoughts on the song?

https://genius.com/a/lady-gaga-perferct-illusion-lyrics-audio

iTunes: http://smarturl.it/PerfectIllusionLG
Apple Music: http://smarturl.it/PerfectIllusion.ap
Google Play: http://smarturl.it/PerfectIllusion.gp
Amazon: http://smarturl.it/PerfectIllusion.amz
Spotify: http://smarturl.it/PerfectIllusion.sp

cc @genius-editorial-board @music @chihuahua0 @OpenMikeAguila @Ryan_Debra @sereinik @lovegaga @Maboo @ipsychotops @Spinelli @esockslam3 @Robboadam @Freeus @streetlights

I think queen is back to collect wigs and nobody is safe

This song reached out and grabbed my brain. No wonder it’s blowing up on genius. Seems like a very straightforward (and great) song, with a LOT of room to relate this to the rest of her catalog. A couple of songs jumped out in my mind, but I’m sure there’s such a huge number of related material it’ll take quite a bit to get it all on the page.

As a longtime Gaga devotee, I’m excited. I love the pumped-up 80s-esque choru and her characteristic lush verve.

I’m a little scared of the current annotations, to be honest. I’m not convinced this is a straightforward post-infatuation lust lyric (which is how it’s being interpreted).

Also, I’m not 100% sure what Gaga means by it being a song “about modern ecstasy.” Is ecstasy a particularly temporally-specific sensation? And if its about E (as the amphetamine lyric suggests), it’s equally confusing: MDMA is MDMA, period.

I’d like there to be some shadow-meaning about the the problem of fame in a successful musical career (here, where the “love” is music, and the illusion is the conflation of making music and getting famous by doing so).

I didn’t expect “Perfect Illusion” to unfold this way. Even from the teased intro, I anticipated it to be more like “Applause” or “Marry the Night”. Getting over my expectations, I’m enjoying it as it is: a raw piece of late 70s/80s rock.

It’s a grower, but I’m grabbing on to more and more of the song, especially the amphetamine line.

Now, how are we going to edit the annotations?

So first off, a tate of mine with actual references to her other songs just got wholesale deleted without comment yesterday. Still not sure why, but this has definitely ensured that I pay attention to the development of the tates on this song particularly carefully.

There are basically two types of Gaga songs: straightforward ones with some metaphor, and extended metaphors with flashes of reality.

The two most “extended metaphor” singles she has are “Poker Face” and “Do What U Want.” (this punctuation convention really bugs me, btw)

In “Poker Face” (actually about her pretending she’s with a girl when she’s with a guy), she says pretty explicitly:

Lovegame intuition, play the cards with spades to start
And after he’s been hooked, I’ll play the one that’s on his heart

then

And baby, when it’s love, if it’s not rough, it isn’t fun (fun)

and finally, the bridge

I won’t tell you that I love you
Kiss or hug you
’Cause I’m bluffin' with my muffin
I’m not lying, I’m just stunnin' with my love-glue-gunnin'

In “Do What U Want” (actually about the press), she’s again explicit:

I, I stand up, and then I’m okay
But then you print some shit that makes me wanna scream

and then says things that don’t make sense in the context of a lover

You can’t stop my voice, cause
You don’t own my life but
Do what you want with my body
Do what you want with my body

In this song, however, the amphetamine line is explicitly a simile:

I don’t need eyes to see
I felt you touchin' me
High like amphetamine
Maybe you’re just a dream

I suppose she could be speaking literally about everything being a dream.

However, the most salient interpretation (other than the obvious one of this being about love) is as follows:

The idea of love being a perfect illusion would be in line with the actual effects of E, and everything else could just be about that experience. The effects of E are actually similar enough to those of amphetamines (Adderal, actual speed, etc.) in terms of the “highness,” though not in terms of the love feelings one usually acquires for others, making a comparison to amphetamines for a rhyme wouldn’t be the worst crime. Ecstasy is pretty notorious for making people feel what could be described as “illusory love” for one another, though the feelings often last longer than the direct effects of the drugs.

That’s all I have for now.

Aaaaaaand the mystery is solved:

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-37316663

The answer is always in the bridge!

Where are you?
Cause I can’t see you
It was a perfect illusion
But I feel you watchin' me
Dilated, falling free
In a modern ecstasy
Where are you?
Cause I can’t see you
It was a perfect illusion

@NicholasGwynne Awesome! Added that explanatory quote to the Q&A. For reference, I’ll leave it here, too:

I believe many of us are wondering why there are so many fake things around us. How do we navigate through social media? How do we look through these images that we know are filtered and altered, and decipher what is reality and what is a perfect illusion?

There are also a lot of things on the internet that are not reality. And I think people are pressured to keep that personal illusion going on in their real lives.

So this song is about raging against it and letting it go. It’s about wanting people to re-establish that human connection.

There’s a storm-a-coming.

Hopefully this doesn’t fall flat like poor Katy’s new single.