Lady Gaga and I have three things in common. We’re just over 5 feet tall, we have Italian heritage, and we’re no stranger to the dark cloud that is depression. In recent years, Gaga has continuously shifted her musical projects toward deeper reflection and honesty while keeping her finger on the bold, dance-inducing beats she’s known for. Her latest studio album, Mayhem, feels as gritty as it sounds. It’s an honest reflection of the personal chaos she endures (e.g., the bleakness of depressive spells, battles with body image) and invites us to face the chaos that exists around and within us—not with terror, but with tenacity.
I’ve had Mayhem on heavy rotation following its March release, and not just because of its catchy melodies or witty rhymes but also for the spiritual undertones I glean from multiple tracks and the quiet hopefulness scattered throughout its 53 minutes.
The Inner Mayhem of Us
Lady Gaga invites us to face the chaos that exists around and within us—not with terror, but with tenacity.
Mayhem’s imagery and mood evokes a strong feeling of darkness and sadness, a dash of gothic literature, and pure mayhem (npi). We enter Mayhem’s world with the intensity and snappiness of “Disease,” which depicts the allegorical battle Gaga fights with the parts of herself she most fears and despises. These unspoken parts that she so dreads seemingly terrify her with no hope in sight as she bleakly sings:
You’re so tortured when you sleep
Plagued with all your memories
You reach out, and no one’s there
Like a god without a prayer
“Disease” almost serves as a dark journal entry about the gloom that can permeate a soul and mind in the darkest of nights. It’s a hopeless prayer that will be familiar to anyone who’s wrestled with their own mental anguish. Despite being a head-bopping electro-pop song, “Disease” can’t hide the despondent themes contained within its lyrics.
As we continue into the mayhem with Gaga, she invites us onto the dance floor, chaos ensuing, with “Abracadabra” serving as a battle cry. On edge as only anxiety and depression can make us, she’s quick to recognize danger:
Keep your mind on the distance
When the devil turns around
Hold me in your heart tonight
In the magic of the dark moonlight
Save me from this empty fight
In the game of life
The lurking evil can be interpreted as the terror of an unexpected depressive episode or anxiety attack. Notice that Gaga’s mindful of this beast and must be on guard as it can pounce at any time. However, she cries out to another for protection, a small sliver of hope that perhaps something beyond this mayhem can save her.
With this chaos lingering in the distance, she implores us in the most Gaga-esque way to simply dance for our lives. The underlying idea in “Abracadabra” is to face the things that plague our souls, like mental health turbulence, by dancing our way with and through them. In the fight against the mayhem of depression and anxiety, Gaga’s weapon of choice is dance.
A few tracks later, “Perfect Celebrity” brings us deeper into Gaga’s reflection on the chaos and paradox that fame and notoriety have brought into her life. One of the album’s more haunting songs, it finds her wrestling with the pressure of being a modern idol and the related glamour and pain. She bluntly sings:
I look so hungry but I look so good…
Choke on the fame and hope it gets you high
Sit in the front row
Watch the princess dieI’ve become a notorious being
Find my clone, she’s asleep on the ceiling now
Can’t get me down
You love to hate me
I’m the perfect celebrityCatch me as I rebound
Without a sound
Save me I’m underground
I can’t be found
Hollywood’s a ghost town
Lady Gaga has been in the spotlight long enough to recognize the negative impact that fame can have on a soul, and she dares us listeners to acknowledge our role in that (“You love to hate me”). From an outside perspective, fame can be attractive for its glamor, awards, and press junkets. Gaga is quick, however, to be frank about fame’s illusion and the chaos it can add to one’s life, be it body image issues (“I look so hungry but I look so good”) or life-sucking loneliness (“I can’t be found/Hollywood’s a ghost town”). Gaga reminds us that there is no such thing as a perfect celebrity, only a flawed being with their own struggles, demons, and mayhem.
Out of Mayhem, Comes Hope
Most of Mayhem‘s songs are dance-inducing (“Zombieboy”) even when the lyrics offer depth and deserve a moment of contemplation (“Shadow of a Man”). And indeed, dancing is Gaga’s go-to form of hope when faced with chaos or terror. She announces “dance or die” in the music video for “Abracadabra” and literally dances for her life against her inner demons in the most metaphorical way that she can.
Now, dancing does not have to literally mean “dancing” in spite of turmoil. It’s simply the thing that keeps one afloat during the darkest nights of depressive episodes and intrusive thoughts. For some, that might be community, hobbies, family, or friends. While I, too, have had my fair share of middle-of-the-night panic attacks, intrusive thoughts that kept me home for days on end, and depressive episodes that felt like the light was nowhere in sight, I ultimately had a hope holding me tighter than a sacred community, hobby, or comfort TV show.
I had an assurance that God would somehow, some way, see me through the mayhem. As those who know God, we can do more than “dance” through the chaos of our souls. We can live with the active hope that God’s writing a story for our lives and working all things for good—even when the pain is tangible and feels too great to bear.
The late Presbyterian minister Frederick Buechner had a unique perspective on how hope can form out of mayhem, particularly when we shift our gaze to a quiet light on the horizon. Buechner talked about the bleakness of depression this way:
To be in a state of depression is like that [Psalm 131]. It is to be unable to occupy yourself with anything much except your state of depression. Even the most marvelous thing is like music to the deaf. Even the greatest thing is like a shower of stars to the blind. You do not raise either your heart or your eyes to the heights, because to do so only reminds you that you are yourself in the depths. Even if, like the Psalmist, you are inclined to cry out “O Lord,” it is a cry like Jonah’s from the belly of a whale.
Depression in all forms feels like utter chaos of the mind and soul during which the only prayer to muster is a quiet, weak “O Lord, help me.” Buechner concludes his reflections on depression and the possibility of hope despite it with this encouragement: “Hope in the Father who is the Mother, the Lady who is the Lord. Do not raise your eyes too high, but lower them to that holy place within you where you are fed and quieted, to that innermost manger where you are yourself the Child.”
A Hopeful Watch
Inner turmoil and spiritual chaos finds a way to ebb and flow, and Lady Gaga’s Mayhem is no stranger to this rhythm. Mayhem sings as a challenge to face the dark nights of the soul with boldness and bravery, not just with dance, but with the hope that God will see us through. That he will quiet our souls and lead us to quiet waters (Psalm 23). God, in his mysterious ways and time, is making a way through the chaos, and with him, darkness never has the upper hand; we need only to wait on him and the light will come once more. To quote Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Mayhem will most likely be my top-played album this year on Spotify, and not just because of its catchy and unique feel. It also serves as a powerful reminder to dance through my own chaos of mental angst, and dance until dawn breaks with a hopeful watch for what’s to come.
