GaGa Wisdom: Words from the Lady

Pop music critic Ann Powers is sharing tidbits from her recent, revealing interview with the primal force known as Lady Gaga leading up to her three sold-out performances at the Nokia Theatre at L.A. Live on Dec. 21-23. Check Pop & Hiss daily for another pearl from the girl. Today, she discusses the emotional evolution that led up to the writing of the eight new songs featured on the reissue of her bestselling album "The Fame" — the repackaged version is known as "The Fame Monster" — and how it influenced her elaborate touring production, the Monster Ball.

Lady Gaga on her emotional evolution: "I'm in a deeper, more compassionate place than where I was when I wrote 'The Fame.' The truth about 'The Fame' is that so much of myself as a woman is hinged on the idea that I can self-empower. I do that with my views and my passions and with the way I choose to carry myself, with the way that I treat other people, with the way that I operate from a place of, I don't care if you love me, I care if you love yourself.

"But it's meant to be this ironic juxtaposition in the Monster Ball. I talk endlessly about my fans and then I writhe around on the floor and say, 'Do you wanna [have sex with] me?' It's asking the question, 'What is it that we really love about stars?' If the beckoning question is always, 'Why don't you love me?,' there's something off about that."

Pop music critic Ann Powers is sharing tidbits from her recent, revealing interview with the primal force known as Lady Gaga leading up to her three sold-out performances at the Nokia Theatre at L.A. Live on Dec. 21-23. Check Pop & Hiss daily for another pearl from the girl.

Today, Gaga sheds light on the true meaning of her excellent new song "Dance in the Dark." Sit back — it's a long explanation.

"The record is about a girl who likes to have sex with the lights off, because she's embarrassed about her body. She doesn't want her man to see her naked. She will be free, and she will let her inner animal out, but only when the lights are out. She doesn't feel free without the moon. These lyrics are a way for me to talk about how I believe women and some men feel innately insecure about themselves all the time. It's not sometimes, it's not in adolescence, it's always.

"Also, I'm working with Viva Glam on MAC AIDS Fund stuff and the more I learn about AIDS and HIV…. most of the new infections are in women my age, and in women ages 53 to 64, older women who haven't had sex in a long time, and in a moment of passion are irresponsible and contract HIV, and women my age who think their boyfriend won't love them if they speak up. Condoms aren't female. They're making female condoms, but right now it's, "buy a Trojan" – it's for men. So everything's in a man's power, and women are taught to be receivers… It's just a very deluded way of looking at sex.

"I guess all of these new things entering my life are changing the way I view my purpose, but that song in particular is about me wanting to live — but also, the song isn't called 'Dance in the Light.' I'm not a gospel singer trying to cross people over. What I'm saying is, 'I get it. I feel you, I feel the same way, and it's OK.'

"I hope and pray that I can inspire some sort of change in people subliminally through the show. They're singing 'Dance in the Dark,' but they're dancing and they're free, they're letting it out. But the songs are not about freedom, they're about [the fact that] I get it. I feel the way you feel."

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