If there’s one concept that Lady Gaga had in mind while working on her upcoming seventh studio album, it was chaos. And the legendary pop star delved even deeper into that world when she dissected the as-yet-untitled album’s lead single, “Disease,” on the latest episode of ROLLING STONE’s “The Breakdown.”
“It felt like a way into the chaos of the album, which is kind of an exercise in chaos. Different sides of who I am as a person,” Gaga said. “To me there is a kind of chaos in all the ways we try to analyze ourselves. “Disease” is the beginning of it, and it started with this little voice on my shoulder saying, ‘There are no more tears to cry, I heard you begging for your life,’ and that uncomfortable feeling we have sometimes if the voice in our head is not pleasant.”
The Ghost of Rick Rubin
“Disease” and much of the album were recorded at Rick Rubin’s famous Shangri-La studio in Malibu. And although he wasn’t present during the sessions, Gaga joked that “his spirit was present.”
Gaga discusses the making of ‘Disease’ with producers Cirkut and Andrew Watt, as well as her fiancé Michael Polinksy, who co-wrote the song with her.
“Working with Michael is super, super interesting because he knows me so well. When we were working on ‘Disease’ I went through some of the first lyrics we had written in the studio. “I could play the doctor. I can cure your illness,” Gaga recalled. “He said, ‘You know, there’s another way to say this.’ He said it should be, ‘Bring me your longing, I can cure your illness,’ because the thing you’re asking for is, to heal you, to heal this addictive kind of desire that you have for this person. It’s a very intimate thing that someone who doesn’t really know me might not think is suitable for me to work with.”
Lady Gaga in a ROLLING STONE interview:
Gaga called “Disease” emblematic of the spirit of the rest of the album, which fluctuates from beautiful, tender moments and sounds to extreme sensory overload. “Disease” was released in October with a music video directed by Tanu Muino. The accompanying album is expected to be released in February.
“There are moments where sonically we’re just trying to push the sound as far as we can. There are other moments that are just about love and it’s super dreamy. This is true chaos to me,” Gaga said of the project. ‘There are times when it’s hard to see the light, but I think sometimes when you catch a glimpse of the sun, the inner chaos is made even worse because you’re like, ‘Man, I wish the sun.’ would seem all the time,” and then it reminds you of what you’re missing. So the album has all of that. It’s like an immersive experience.”