Lady Gaga decided to delay her Chromatica album amid the pandemic. But now, her anticipated record arrives in one week. Ahead of its arrival, Gaga opened up about writing her record, saying some of the songs were emotionally difficult for her to create.
Speaking to Zane Lowe in a recent interview on Apple Music, Gaga discussed her songwriting process. The singer said she had considered going sober after writing a track called ‘911,’ which centers around her experiences on an antipsychotic medication:
“I don’t take any pain medication, because it’s not healthy for me. But I’ve flirted with the idea of sobriety. I’m not there yet, but I flirted with it throughout the album. It’s something that came up as a result of me trying to work through the pain that I was feeling. But part of my healing process was going, ‘Well, I can either lash the hell out of myself every day for continuing to drink, or I can just be happy that I’m still alive and keep going,’ and feel good enough. I am good enough. It’s not perfect, but wabi-sabi. I’m perfectly imperfect.”
Though she didn’t stop drinking alcohol, Gaga said she managed to quit cigarettes during the Chromatica recording process: “I quit smoking. I smoked the whole way through making this record. And when we were done, I stopped. It was the most bizarre, beautiful thing that could have happened, that this music actually healed me.”
Gaga has been routinely open about her personal struggles with mental health. Elsewhere in the interview, Gaga addressed her past challenges with self-harm: “I think I forgive myself. I forgive myself for all the ways I’ve punished myself in private. I’ve been open about the fact that I used to cut. And I’ve open about the fact that I have had masochistic tendencies that are not healthy. And they’re ways of expressing shame. They’re ways of expressing feeling not good enough, but actually they’re not effective. They just make you feel worse.”
Following the interview, Gaga released the single “Rain On Me” with Ariana Grande. The track arrives as only the second single off her record.
Chromatica is out 5/29 via Interscope. Pre-order it here.