Lady Gaga - Abracadabra

Interactive Transcript

spk_0 You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece,

spk_0 tell the story of how they were made.

spk_0 I'm Rishikesh Herway.

spk_0 Check out the award-winning music podcast, Disc Race Land, which is kind of like a cross

spk_0 between a true crime podcast and a music podcast.

spk_0 It tells stories about larger-than-life rock stars and musicians and the crimes that they've

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spk_0 Lady Gaga is a singer, songwriter, producer, and actress from New York.

spk_0 She's one of the biggest artists in the world.

spk_0 She's also won 14 Grammys, two Golden Globes, and an Oscar.

spk_0 And in March 2025, she released her sixth album, Mayhem.

spk_0 For this episode, I talked to her about a song from that album called Abercadabra.

spk_0 She co-wrote it and co-produced it with Andrew Watt and Circuit.

spk_0 And they recorded it in Rick Rubin's studio, Shangri-La.

spk_0 That's also where we recorded the interview for this episode, which happens to be

spk_0 the 300th episode of the podcast.

spk_0 Here it is.

spk_0 I'm from the dog, I'm on full of dogs.

spk_0 And the tongue she sings, they're all off the night.

spk_0 My name is Lady Gaga.

spk_0 Before we get into the specifics of the song itself, I was wondering if,

spk_0 as you were going into making this album, if there were any big picture ideas

spk_0 that you were thinking about or aiming for.

spk_0 Well, I will say that returning to my earlier sound,

spk_0 what I discovered kind of on the lower side when I was first making music,

spk_0 that was something that I was excited about.

spk_0 What was behind that?

spk_0 What made you want to go back to your earlier days?

spk_0 You know, I expressed the darkness I felt as a young person through music,

spk_0 like my whole life, and it was scary.

spk_0 And I felt that around me for a really long time.

spk_0 So my earliest records were kind of dark, and they embodied live instrumentation

spk_0 with electronic music.

spk_0 But over time, I just artistically was going,

spk_0 and lots of new musical directions exploring myself.

spk_0 And then music became a business, which was not why I did this.

spk_0 So when I decided to make this album, I think I was just wanting to reclaim something

spk_0 that made me me.

spk_0 And my partner, Michael, was like, you know, you don't have to be afraid of your darkness

spk_0 anymore because you've really gotten a handle on it.

spk_0 Like it's okay to go back there.

spk_0 So it was important to me, how do I get myself back?

spk_0 How can I make all of these dreams, these like,

spk_0 gothic fantasies that I have in music?

spk_0 How can I make them real?

spk_0 But that I don't have to wreck myself.

spk_0 I think trusting myself that I could make a dark album.

spk_0 And that I would be okay was a big piece of it.

spk_0 Let's go to the day that the song started.

spk_0 Do you remember how that day began?

spk_0 Me and Andrew Watt and Circuit.

spk_0 We were actually working on another song that didn't end up on the album.

spk_0 It was a mid tempo thing.

spk_0 But then Circuit was like, I've got something I've been working on.

spk_0 I wanted to play it for you.

spk_0 And I went up right away.

spk_0 I was like, what is that?

spk_0 That is crazy.

spk_0 And we just stopped everything that we were doing.

spk_0 Andrew was like, that could be a hard beat to ride over because it's so busy.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 And I was like, watch me because that kind of electronic chaos,

spk_0 that kind of like razor sharp thing just speaks to my soul so deeply.

spk_0 How do you articulate the feeling that you had when you first heard this beat?

spk_0 It's a feeling of your heart racing as fast as possible.

spk_0 Some adrenaline, excitement, deep thrill, and freedom.

spk_0 It almost reminded me of how I used to feel when I went out at night alone in my early 20s.

spk_0 I would just like have nothing to do but discover the night.

spk_0 What music was I going to hear?

spk_0 What DJs were going to be playing?

spk_0 What cool artists was I going to run into?

spk_0 It was really nostalgic.

spk_0 But it was still really modern.

spk_0 And I was also excited for the challenge because I could hear there was something special in what he had created.

spk_0 But that it also needed to become a fully formed song.

spk_0 So I just started writing.

spk_0 We turned it on and I just got on the mic.

spk_0 Like freestyle.

spk_0 Oh yeah.

spk_0 A lot of my music, especially when we work to track is freestyle.

spk_0 And it happens pretty quickly.

spk_0 But it didn't have words yet.

spk_0 It was just kind of made upwards.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 And then me and Andrew went into this room here.

spk_0 And we started to work on a pre-chorus.

spk_0 And you know, we had to build the chord structure to come out of that beat.

spk_0 Because it's got to like match circuits, a tonal bass lines.

spk_0 It has to grow out of that dissonance and that tension.

spk_0 Like what is going to make it open?

spk_0 Because that beat in a way is kind of closed.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 So what was going to happen to open up the song?

spk_0 But we did it at the piano with the guitar.

spk_0 It had this kind of gothic quality to it.

spk_0 What were the first words that you wrote?

spk_0 It was like a poem said by a lady in red.

spk_0 You hear the last few words of your life.

spk_0 Like a poem said by a lady in red.

spk_0 You hear the last few words of your life.

spk_0 I remember thinking of like being at a party and somebody kind of lording over the party,

spk_0 saying like, I'm going to decide how your evening goes.

spk_0 I'm going to control the whole thing.

spk_0 I will be in charge of whether or not you fall in love or you get too messed up to even make it home.

spk_0 When you were thinking of that image,

spk_0 which side of that did you relate to more?

spk_0 Like was that person who's kind of lording over the party?

spk_0 Is that a figure that you usually are at a party or usually the person on the other side being like,

spk_0 okay, what's going to happen?

spk_0 When we were writing it, I was imagining I was at the party and I was being kind of be set upon by this figure

spk_0 that was inclined to torture me into having the night of my life.

spk_0 Is that an experience that you feel like you've had where you've been subject to someone else's setup?

spk_0 Yes, Lady Gaga setup.

spk_0 You know, for a long time, keeping up with that side of myself,

spk_0 you know, like if you're never dropping your stage persona,

spk_0 and we all have like a public facing persona,

spk_0 and if you just never drop it,

spk_0 and if it has an edge to it,

spk_0 you know, too much of anything is bad.

spk_0 But then sometimes our dark side,

spk_0 it like really challenges us and makes us great because we learn a lot.

spk_0 I actually think part of what may him is about is the duality of me being both of these people.

spk_0 It's interesting because you both referred to it as torture,

spk_0 but also the night of your life.

spk_0 Yeah, well, those are some of my issues for sure.

spk_0 But I think in the context of the world that you'd constructed for yourself,

spk_0 the rigor that you'd made for yourself by inventing Lady Gaga,

spk_0 and then having to live up to that,

spk_0 I could see how both of those things would apply.

spk_0 Well, you know, as someone that played classical piano since I was really little,

spk_0 and I had a lot of really strict teachers and went to ballet,

spk_0 and you know, all my disciplines,

spk_0 I will say that like there is a kind of suffering in discipline when you're working really hard.

spk_0 And I think I just took that to a really far degree in my work, my whole life,

spk_0 and I became kind of someone that thrived on intensity.

spk_0 I think that this song is definitely grappling with intensity.

spk_0 It's a test, but it's also kind of not up to you.

spk_0 I think that's a lot how I feel about being an artist.

spk_0 I don't really feel like I fully chose this.

spk_0 If I was a tree, it would be like someone just grabbed the trunk and just said,

spk_0 this is where you're going to grow.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 So the Abercadabra piece, it's a spell that this lady in red is casting on the listener on the nightclub,

spk_0 and that pre-chorus, it's a ritual.

spk_0 It's like, I'm going to read you this poem, and we're going to have a ceremony,

spk_0 and we're going to see how tough you are.

spk_0 So we had written a chord progression that we then gave to circuit to put into the track,

spk_0 to open up into a chorus.

spk_0 And I started just going Abercadabra.

spk_0 And I was saying Abercadabra over and over again at first,

spk_0 but I was so excited about making up my own words that it could be anything,

spk_0 because it was this spell, like what would this spell even be?

spk_0 But I knew that death and love was something that I wanted to be,

spk_0 like at the helm of what this lady in red was saying to the room.

spk_0 And so I started thinking about Latin and Italian,

spk_0 and what would be like the Gothic romance words, like Maure in French is death.

spk_0 So then I was asking Paul, our engineer, to look up different words,

spk_0 and then he was like mortas, the god of death.

spk_0 We spent a couple days carving out every single word.

spk_0 But in order for me to really know that it was lyrically right,

spk_0 I wanted to hear it with all the harmonies.

spk_0 Abercadabra, more unana, Abercadabra, more de uga ga.

spk_0 Abercadabra, Abercadabra, unana,

spk_0 in a tongue she said, death or love tonight.

spk_0 I couldn't hear it without it, because the magic and the glamour of the song

spk_0 is in how goddy it is in the chorus.

spk_0 And I couldn't hear if it was the right words until it was fully opulent.

spk_0 My conversation with Lady Gaga continues after this.

spk_0 This episode is brought to you by the music podcast You'll Hear It.

spk_0 Each episode of You'll Hear It explores an iconic album from history

spk_0 to answer the question, what makes this album great?

spk_0 The hosts Adam Manus and Peter Martin give you their insights into some true classics.

spk_0 They've talked about Blue by Joni Mitchell, a love supreme by John Coltrane,

spk_0 interventions by Stevie Wonder, rumors by Fleetwood Mac, and many, many more.

spk_0 Check out You'll Hear It, Music Explored.

spk_0 Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube.

spk_0 What was so deeply like inside of me when I was writing Isum of New York.

spk_0 In New York, the spirit of ballroom culture is something that I have always admired

spk_0 and has been deeply meaningful to me.

spk_0 My whole life as an artist and the LGBTQ plus community and the way that I've been embraced

spk_0 as a human being and been accepted as a young person.

spk_0 I've like found my people.

spk_0 And I think there is something about this spell that's also speaking to being a resilient person

spk_0 and being inspired by resilient people.

spk_0 And what it means to be tested constantly in your life and to say, I'm up for the challenge.

spk_0 I'm going to do this.

spk_0 So when we eventually got to the verses, it actually became very spiritual and it became about resilience.

spk_0 And then it was less about this being like completely grim, this story, and more of a dance club anthem.

spk_0 When the devil turns around.

spk_0 What were you imagining with those lyrics?

spk_0 It's what do you have to do to keep going, to get to the next phase as you're headed toward all the good in your life

spk_0 and the devils on your back, like don't turn around.

spk_0 What about the way you delivered those lines? What were you thinking about for that?

spk_0 Vocally, this song was, it's an interesting performance.

spk_0 I actually think that the thing that I was channeling the most was a kind of metal gravitas, but in a pop way.

spk_0 So I was sort of trying to marry what I would imagine it would have sounded like if Iron Maiden was doing the song.

spk_0 Yeah, I can see that. They have like a sense of authority.

spk_0 Right, authority is the right word.

spk_0 And then we put that into Circuit's track and then he was building it even more.

spk_0 We actually went through like three different versions of production and we ultimately ended in like a house style.

spk_0 I remember being like emotional when we decided to do that because I was like, this is right.

spk_0 Because everything for me always went back to the dance floor.

spk_0 So it was completely full circle and that lyric right after holding me in your heart tonight in the magic of the dark moonlight.

spk_0 Like that's sort of like acknowledging that sometimes our demons can be our friends because we know them so well.

spk_0 Like I'm going to be there for you when you go through this.

spk_0 Hold me in your heart tonight in the magic of the dark moonlight.

spk_0 Save me from this empty fight.

spk_0 I also wanted to ask you about this sound.

spk_0 It sort of twists and morphs and in some ways it's almost more like sound design.

spk_0 Circuit made that.

spk_0 There's like an element that's descending and ascending at the same time.

spk_0 Yeah, sounds like the club's going to explode.

spk_0 We just were really open to trying different ways to making it feel chaotic.

spk_0 That played a huge role in everything that we did.

spk_0 There was always something distorting in some way or bending, building the tension that would release.

spk_0 It just started to get crazier and crazier and by the bridge when we got to the bridge I became a completely different person.

spk_0 It wasn't like I was like, oh I think we should do opera here.

spk_0 Like I just started singing that way.

spk_0 This ending is this huge crescendo.

spk_0 For all the stuff that was happening fast and intuitively,

spk_0 were there any parts of the song that felt like you really had to labor over it to get right?

spk_0 I would say the second verse, the lyric, no return.

spk_0 I changed that lyric after the song was mixed because it was don't waste time on a feeling, use your passion.

spk_0 It's your turn and I called everybody into the studio and I was like, we have to change this.

spk_0 This is wrong. Why was it wrong?

spk_0 Because it's your turn.

spk_0 I felt was signaling something that the song was already saying.

spk_0 We knew we were up for the test and you don't want a second verse.

spk_0 That's sort of revisiting the first verse and not going anywhere new.

spk_0 But no return.

spk_0 It was raising the stakes.

spk_0 You can't give up.

spk_0 And the song didn't have that in it yet.

spk_0 What was also bugging me for a while was choose the road on the west side as the dust flies watch it burn.

spk_0 Choose the road on the west side as the dust flies watch it burn.

spk_0 Because it was such a metal lyric.

spk_0 And I'm like, is this just wrong for what this song could be?

spk_0 Because there's so much about Abercadaver that is just not what anyone would think of as what would be on the radio or streaming.

spk_0 I mean, it's like not easy listening.

spk_0 It's got all these niche references and it's so maximalist.

spk_0 And loud.

spk_0 And so during the songwriting process, I'm battling a lot of judgment, inner judgment.

spk_0 I'm judging myself for what I've created.

spk_0 But that was what it was supposed to be.

spk_0 It has all of the pieces of something that has quintessentially me.

spk_0 The intervals of the melody, the made up words, the fantastic idea mixed with these heavy dance beats, with rock instrumentation.

spk_0 And this blend of things is what Lady Gaga is to me.

spk_0 It's almost like if you had one chance to architect a building to show who you are, but you were desperate for people to know.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 So you just like put gargoyles and columns and marble and grass and there's a lake and it's just because you're just trying to say I'm everything.

spk_0 I'm all these things.

spk_0 Yeah, so I was judging myself.

spk_0 And then I sort of accepted who I am through the process and became okay with it.

spk_0 What I found that day was an understanding of a challenge that I had been a part of for so long that I had been so afraid of acknowledging and knowing.

spk_0 And I finally like put a name to it all.

spk_0 It has helped me to take ownership over something that used to run my life in a negative way.

spk_0 You know, it's like you create yourself.

spk_0 I made Lady Gaga, but then like people reflect back to you what they think.

spk_0 They have maybe a fantasy of you or dreams for you that are not yours.

spk_0 But I took back the dreams that were mine.

spk_0 And what I realized is that the biggest dream that I had was being myself as an artist.

spk_0 And now here's Abercadabra by Lady Gaga in its entirety.

spk_0 Hey, the toll to the angels, the ghosts and the clouds.

spk_0 Keep your mind on the distance from the devil, comes around.

spk_0 Home, be in your heart tonight and eventually, all the dark moonlight.

spk_0 Save me from this empty mind.

spk_0 In the game of life, by the poem said by Lady and Reddy,

spk_0 I think here the last few words of the light,

spk_0 With a honking dance, I get both in a trance,

spk_0 It's time to cross yours about all the night.

spk_0 Abercadabra by Marlena, Abercadabra by Marlena.

spk_0 With a tongue she sang, therefore, love her night.

spk_0 Choose the road on the west side, as the dust flies, watch it burn.

spk_0 So is time on being, use your passion on a girl.

spk_0 Hold me in your heart tonight and eventually, all the dark moonlight.

spk_0 Save me from this empty mind.

spk_0 In the game of life, by the poem said by Lady and Reddy,

spk_0 Here the last few words of your life,

spk_0 With a honking dance, now you're both in a trance,

spk_0 It's time to cross yours about all the night.

spk_0 In the time she sang, therefore, love her night.

spk_0 For the more than, for the more to be,

spk_0 Think of me as an old man,

spk_0 I know you.

spk_0 Visit songexploder.net to learn more,

spk_0 including some footnotes that go with this episode.

spk_0 You'll find links to buy or stream Abercadabra

spk_0 and you can watch the music video.

spk_0 This episode was produced by me, Craig Ely, Mary Dolan,

spk_0 and Kathleen Smith, with production assistance from Tiger Biscope.

spk_0 The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerima,

spk_0 and I made the show's theme music and logo.

spk_0 Special thanks to Dylan Marin and all the folks at Shangri-La.

spk_0 Song Exploder is a proud member of Radio Topia from PRX,

spk_0 a network of independent listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts.

spk_0 You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm.

spk_0 And if you'd like to hear more from me about what I'm listening to

spk_0 and watching and thinking about,

spk_0 you can subscribe to my newsletter,

spk_0 which you can find on Substack or on the Song Exploder website.

spk_0 You can also get a song exploder shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt.

spk_0 I'm Rishikesh Herway.

spk_0 Thanks for listening.

Lady Gaga - Abracadabra

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