[Complete] Zane Lowe interview summary

[AlwaysLoveGaga 4,297]

Okay almost 3 hours later... and I am done! 

I hope this helps people who cannot watch the interview!!

If I missed anything, let me know

I put song titles in bold and underlined them!

Also, unless it’s in quotes, it may not be word for word exactly what she said, there may be a few words that were different or omitted

Part 1:
-Chromatica was delayed because Gaga wanted to do something more specific and something that can help the world in a focused way.
-Chromatica is a more abstract way to help the world
-Once she did the specific thing, her work with The WHO and spreading kindness, she moved to the abstract: Chromatica
-Gaga doesn’t view these interviews as promotion
-Gaga: we are in a rudimentary system and our world is very divided
-The Stupid Love video with the red and blue tribes can be seen as political commentary
-Gaga: Division creates an extremist environment
-Chromatica is not dystopian or utopian, it’s how Gaga sees the world
-Chromatica is her translating how she views the world to us
-Gaga wants us to take a journey with her with this record
-Gaga can’t wait to share this album and dance with people to this music playing as loud as possible and show them how much she loves them.
-She wants us to not only go through this journey with her and dance through the pain, but also to go through our own journey and dance through our pain; “Maybe there will be am arc in that sine that aligns us both. So from a far, how can we connect”, there is an arc that connects both yours and Gaga’s journey.
-Zane: Until Chromatica and since ARTPOP, you haven’t been dancing
-Gaga: I wasn’t dancing in my brain and in my life. I felt turned around in life.
-Gaga: I was trying to make sense of my humanity within the music industry, which is objectifying. The music industry makes me feel like a robot. I would be sad, but then when I would hear myself happy in the song and it would be incongruent with how she was feeling.
-She was subconsciously experiencing joy
-Gaga unconsciously kept sad due to her mental issues and trauma
-Gaga understands why people find it annoying when people criticize artists for compiling about being mobbed in public, but “I’m still a person”
-While making this album, on a subconscious level she was experiencing joy, but consciously feeling depression due to the objectification in the music industry
-She developed a fear of the public, but not a fear of people
-“This album is how I got back to people and how I connect with people”
-Gaga: I am an artist not a celebrity. I want to eradicate the idea of celebrity
-Once you become famous, people tell you what you want and what you always wanted.
-Gaga (sarcastically): “When you were a little girl and you were good at piano and writing songs, you decided that you were going to trade your talent with the world in exchange for us telling you who you are”

Part 2:
-When COVID happened, I did not want to put the album out. She wanted to use her humanity to do something that she considers infinitely more important.
-She was/is worried the helpers of the world do not necessarily have the mental help they need
-She was worried that “when this is over” or “get’s better”, that people wouldn’t be there to support them
-She wanted to put bigger things ahead of herself
-911 is about an anti-psychotic she takes because she can’t always control her brain; “Keep my dolls inside diamond boxes, save it till I know I’m gonna drop this front I’ve built around me. Oasis, paradise is in my hands. Holding on so tight to this status, it’s not real but I’ll try to grab it. Keep myself in beautiful places. Paradise is in my hands”.
-911 comes at the beginning of the second act
-The album is three acts
-Zane: Chromatica I is one of the most beautiful string arrangements I’ve heard in a long time
-(I might be assuming) - Chromatica I transitions into Alice. Zane said “The transition into Alice is so perfect”
-Gaga: Chromatica I symbolizes “the beginning of my journey to healing” and is inspiration to people that are in need of healing through happiness and dance. She calls this radical acceptance: a concept where Gaga knows she has mental issues that can render her not functional, but she radically accepts its real
-Chromatica I is a “grave” string arrangement of impending doom of what happens if Gaga faces all the things that scare her
-This theme continues in Alice with the line “My name isn’t Alice but I’m still looking for Wonderland”. Meaning: I’m not giving up and not throwing in the towel
-Gaga had “dark” conversations with BloodPop about life before making this album.
-First line of the album is: “could you pull my out of this alive”. Mental issues start internally;  the “you” in the first line implies to anyone or Gaga herself pulling herself out of her mind. 
-Gaga loses sight of her body and is completely in her head
-More Alive lyrics: “I’m tired of screaming at the top of my lungs. I’m in the hole, I’m falling down, down, down. My name isn’t Alice but I’m still looking for Wonderland”. These lyrics mean “I’m not sure I’m going to make it, but I’m going to try”
-This is where the album really begins
-Chromatica I sets the stage for a more “cinematic experience”
-Gaga: Even though I have all these things going on, I will keep searching and trying for wonderland
-There is a lot of “yearning” on Chromatica
-Gaga: ARTPOP was too soon
-People are more ready for Chromatica than they would be in 2013
-Gaga: I stand by everything I’ve done
-Gaga: My legacy is authentic… I’ve always done things that are true to me
-Chromatica is a reminder of the freedom Gaga has as an artist and her love for electronic music and the ability a computer has to make something that is soulful

Part 3
-Gaga: The bulk of this album was made inside a computer
-Gaga gave BloodPop things she played on the piano and they’d do all sorts of things with the computer to it
-Never before has Gaga seen so many producers willing to pass around music and have it be a conversation. If someone’s production wasn’t used, they were okay. Everyone wanted what was best for the song. 
-Gaga hasn’t smoked once since quitting
-Gaga would chain smoke all day on her porch and and when BloodPop would come and get her, she be in an endless “I am being attacked state”
-Gaga chain-smoked through the making of this record, and when they were done making it she stopped smoking. “This music actually healed me”
-The “Sine From Above” is what healed her to be able to dance her way out of this album singing Babylon…
-… “a song about gossip”. Gossip used to run Gaga’s life and now she can dance to it.
-Gaga: I feel free
-Fun Tonight means a lot to Gaga and she always gets choked up listening to it.
-It is about how there were so many nights when people who loved her would try to make her smile or be optimistic, but she had no ability to be happy.
-She would then write music and listen and think: “Why is that so happy”
-Zane: ARTPOP was f**k you this is who I am, I’m going to go play with my friend Tony and then I’m going home
-Zane: Joanne was an attempt to get closure, but you came out of this era of healing chain-smoking on your porch having a dark conversation with yourself.
-Gaga: Mark Ronson is only interested in making the album the artist wants. He might as well be standing in front of anything people want me to be and be slashing at it.
-When Gaga made Joanne, traveling the world, learning to play guitar, and going on tour, she realized “I made an album for my dad” and trying to heal his and her family’s trauma. 
-Joanne was a “beautiful and futile” effort to heal her father, but it did not work.
-Her disappointment drove her into a depression and she realized that no matter what she mades, no matter how big she becomes, she can’t fix her dad… and then you’re on the porch smoking
-Gaga: Who gives a sh*t if I’m a celebrity or an artist, how many people on the planet are trying to fix somebody they love and heal someone that is broken because they are pining for a greatness that will never be fulfilled.
-Gaga: I don’t want to be a f**king pseudoscientist, but potentially the way that I behave and act has something to do with what my dad went through. I made Joanne and realized I couldn’t fix my dad.
-Gaga: If I couldn’t fix my dad, then what’s the point?
-She was sent into a deep depression
-Zane: What brought you back? Gaga: The sound. The music. Being myself and seeing little glimpses of myself come alive here and there. In a way I was asleep and I was just sleeping through life and I was just angry. You then find gravitate for the love around me. 
-Gaga: BloodPop would listen to me for hours when I was spiraling, just so we could write one song. That love instilled in me a gratitude that grew over time that just made me more of a fighter. I started to lean into reality, lean into my mental issues and go I have them and I’m still going. Then I kept going and I kept going and I kept dancing and I kept writing and I didn’t stop and I was honest every single time.
-Gaga says writing the lyrics to the album was “like that (she snaps)”. “This is how I used to write music. When I first started writing music someone would sit down with me and I would write it down on a piece of paper and hand it to them… this is how this album was made”
-Gaga: I would fight through it
-Lyrics from Sine From Above: “I heard one sine from above then the signal split in two. The sound created stars like me and you. Before there was love there was silence, I heard one sine and it healed my heart”
-Sine From Above was written late in the recording process and is a tribute to the thing that has revived her: music.
-Gaga: Music is what revived me when I was a little girl trying to heal my dad and I would sit at the piano and write songs and my dad would go from being upset or having a hard day and sit on the couch and say “Yeah I like that one, that’s a good one Loop (he would call her Loopy).. Is that a chord? Play that chord again. I love that lyric. I love that melody.”
-The thing made her want to become an artist, healing her father, is still with her, but now it is a positive thing where she knows she cannot actually do it, but the way I responded to it has made me who I am and I love who I am.
-Gaga: My way of dealing with my father’s pain is writing songs.

Part 4
-Zane: Rain on me is such a smash
-Ariana said that Gaga gives artists a safe space to be a part of this experience.
-Gaga and Ariana connected right away
-Gaga asked Ari what she needed and how she wanted to do things
-Gaga was sitting at the console talking to her and said “Everything you care about while you sing I want you to forget it and just sing and while you do that I’m going to dance infant of you”
-Ari then did things with her voice that was different
-Gaga changes artists she works with to do things out of their comfort zone: “Do it super f**king unsafe”
-Gaga: Ari was so open to trying things she hasn’t done before
-Gaga: ROM was healing because it wasn’t with an artist that mentored her and she could go up to her and say “whatever pop cultural construct you have to live up to, I want you to please forget about it”
-Zane: What I hear in ROM is two artists sharing an experience of coming out of trauma
-Gaga: Ari has been through some undoubtedly life testing stuff and when Ari came into the studio Gaga was crying and Ari wasn’t. Ari kept trying to reach out to Gaga, but Gaga was too ashamed to hang out with her because she didn’t want to project her negativity on Ari’s healing.
-Ari then called her out on it and told Gaga that she was hiding, and Gaga admitted to her that she was hiding.
-“I’d rather by dry, but at least I’m alive Rain on me”. This is a reference to not only tears, but also the amount of drinking Gaga was doing to num herself from the pain. Gaga: I’d rather be not be drinking, but I haven’t died yet. I’m going to keep drinking
-Gaga: ROM has many layers
-Zane: Shame is the destroyer of everything. Gaga: 100%
-Zane: I was wondering, if it ever got bad; Did the drinking or the medication, if any other crutch came into your life and how bad it got?
-Gaga: I have really dope doctors, so they won’t give me any narcotics. “To be clear”, when I say pop a 911 it is not an opioid or a narcotic. I don’t take any pain medication because it’s not healthy for me.
-Gaga: I have flirted with the idea of sobriety, but I’m not there yet… I could either lash out at myself for drinking, or I could be happy I’m still alive.
-Gaga: I am good enough. It’s not perfect, but I’m perfectly important.
-Gaga thinks it’s unfair that celebrities’ emotions aren’t validated, but at the same time, she wants to validate the emotions of all the people who aren’t famous 
-Gaga: Through social media, we have created “Enigmas”: Avatars of who we are online in order to deal with ourselves. It helps us feel safe, but it starts to turn on you. It’s a false economy and the currency is shallow as f*ck. You can’t be pretty enough, you can’t be pretty enough, etc.
-Gaga: If you’re not famous because you’re trying to help/make an impact on the world, the return on what you’re putting in is a like and that is a bottomless pit. You are literally circling the drain going “I am valuable if I get a ton of likes. No, that is not what makes you valuable. What makes you valuable are your morals, your ethics, your code, how you act, how you treat people, your behavior. That’s what makes you who you are, not how many people like your post.

 

Part 5
-Free woman got suck in Zane’s head.
-Rain on Me frees her and Free Woman is her singing about that: “This is my dance floor, I fought for”
-Gaga: I tend to aspire for things to be genderless, but with Free Woman I felt a need to reference my gender because I was sexually assaulted by a music producer. It has compounded all of the feelings about my life. When I was able to celebrate I said “I'm not nothing without a steady hand, I'm not nothing unless I know I can, I'm still something if I don't got a man, I'm a Free Woman”.
-Gaga says it’s not a matter of finding zen, rather it is her saying “I am not longer going to define myself as a survivor or a victim of sexual assault”
-Gaga: I’m just a person who is free that went through some f**ked up s**t
-Free Woman is such an emotional and raw song, but it’s still a dance song: 
-Free Woman lyrics:“That’s what I’m living for. Light up my body, and kiss me too hardly. I walk the downtown and hear my sound.” This is Gaga’s way of saying that she is making a dance record again and that this dance floor is her’s and she earned it and all that stuff she went through she doesn’t have to feel pain about anymore. She can just keep going.
-Gaga: I can’t tell you how healing this was for me
-Gaga: When I started taking about this album, I would cry between every interview, but it turns out if you believe in yourself, sometimes you’re good enough… I would love for people who listen to this record to feel and hear that
-Gaga: We all share, no matter the country, life experiences and what I can share with you is that if there is a tiny spark in you that is still beating to grab it. It is possible that if you do, it will light you up and bring you back to life if you believe in yourself.
-Gaga started off trying to heal everyone, and is now healing herself
-Gaga: Coming out of this album, I forgive myself for all the ways I punished myself in private. 
-Gaga used to cut and has had masochistic tendencies. Gaga: You feel like you deserve to be hurt and that you don’t deserve good things and you don’t deserve happiness. They don’t help
-Gaga would see people write online “Those scars on her arms are disgusting” and that made her feel worse.
-Gaga made deals with herself that whenever she would want to hurt herself, she would talk to people.
-Gaga: “You do not need to be crazy or to hurt yourself to be a superstar. You don’t have to hurt yourself to feel better… The harder thing to do is to ask for help”
-Gaga stopped and forgave herself because she realized she was human and it made her feel better. She was human even though “I feel like a plastic doll. Look at me I’m so f**king human”
-Now Gaga is able to love and feel love and not burn it down and feel like she doesn’t deserve it
-The more Gaga loves, the more she unconsciously feels as if she isn’t worthy of love. “It’s hard but it is worth fighting for”
-Continuing with these themes, one of her favorite lines is: “Every single day, yeah, I dig a grave. Then I sit inside it, wondering if I’ll behave. It’s a game I play. And I hate to say, you’re the worst thing and the best thing that’s happened to me.

Part 6
-All the things that made her start the album asking if “you could pull me out of this alive” are exactly the things that pointed her to her humanity and brought her back to where she was
-Gaga: If you’re listening to this album and suffering in any way, just know that that suffering is a sign of your humanity and you are not broken, you are connected to the whole world and we are one giant body and the whole you is having a whole human experience. There may be parts of your life that feel completely shallow or robotic or unimportant, but that’s okay. That suffering is a sign that you are real.
-Even though because she changed her look and she has somehow given the narrative away and it has been written for her, she is not taking it back and saying she is a human.
-It took a lot of pain, but she is in a good place now
-She is no longer dancing for her dad, she is dancing with her dad
-Gaga: I am not performing to fix anything, I am living my destiny which is to give gifts to the world. I believe that is what I’m meant to you.
-Gaga: There is a theory the whole world was created by a famine sound wave and that wave thought what they saw was their father below them and fell to be with their father, but was actually a reflection from behind them so they fell into an abyss and broke into two and two galaxies were born a good one and an evil one. The evil one is where evil things pretended to be god and we believed in them and started to argue and hate each other and that is the world I believe I live on.
-Gaga: My understanding of god is that it’s a Sine. That god began as a sound.
-Elton hasn’t heard the album yet
-Elton was on his world tour when he made the song with Gaga
-“I am in so much trouble now. My gay dads are going to be so mad”
-Zane: Elton and Gaga sound amazing together
-Gaga: Elton has been my mentor and has always challenged me to keep my head above water. 
-Elton knows when Gaga is down because she hides.
-When making the album, she would cry and have panic attacks around Morgan and BloodPop
-Elton has always challenged her to take care of her artistry and herself. Gaga honors that about Elton: “He is so uniquely special”.
-Elton shows her that you can have a decade long career and still be authentic and do good things in the world and take care of yourself
-Elton is one of her biggest inspirations
-Gaga has a close relationship to Elton’s husband
-Gaga has had trouble making connections with older woman, but one exception is Celine Dion who has been “so warm” so Gaga. Other than Celine and Carol King, it has been hard for Gaga to have someone in her life that would show her the way.
-Elton and his husband have been so helpful in her life.
-Gaga said that she is now going to send him Chromatica
-Gaga says Elton will know what happened when he hears the music because he knows her and 
-Gaga looks through trauma and tries to take out the universal themes and thinks about what they sound like.
-Gaga can hear and see the sound. “Open the portal, talk to the sound, listen to god, and make the music”.
-Gaga: Elton will hear that and see that not only did she make this for herself, she made it for the world.
-What Gaga has not gotten from older women, she is giving to younger artists like Blackpink, Ari, and Billie.
-She loves looking out for younger artists. They are not competing, she wants everyone to win. This is how she views the world too, that she wants people to be so kind it’s almost an annoyance to people.
-Gaga sent Billie flowers because she wanted act like the mentor she never had.

Part 7
-Gaga wants people to love the record, but it’s not just about the music, it is about who gaga is and what she is trying to say.
-The first billboard for the album said “You are essential” and she means it.
-The simplicity of seeing something kind on your phone or walking down the street and seeing a billboard saying you matter is who Gaga is.
-It’s not just about music, it’s about culture and about how she fits in the industry.
-Gaga: I hope people like the album, and if not, I hope younger artists of any gender identity, any sexual identity, will know that I am rooting for them. I think that artists are beautiful and I think people I beautiful.
-Gaga: This idea that we are rooting people on in this world is so important.
-Gaga: We need to focus on people that need help the most and that is why I did the Together at Home special. With The Who because I wanted to help the people who were the most in need.
-Gaga: What you can see through all of this is the kindness and the relating
-Gaga’s grandma who’s in her 90’s has cancer and has to go in for radiation by herself with her mom waiting outside the hospital. We all have a story like this. We all have our thing. But, “there are some people in the world who already had nothing, and then this happen. So, what about those people?”
-This is where gratitude comes from and this can inspire people to help each other.
-Gaga hopes that through this record, and the conduit that is her, she can be a citizen of the world
-Gaga: I was born this way. This is who I am. I feel this way. 
-Gaga: My rebellion is wanting to shape and shift culture in a way that is kind. That is my rebellion and that’s what makes me a punk.
-“I don’t give a f**k that people think I’m annoying because I talk about doing good things. That’s just who I am”
-Gaga can’t wait to see the world once this is all over
-Gaga is going to go to every gay club she can find and hug and kiss every human she comes in contact with because she just “loves people so much”.
-"Although I may have said some things in this interview that imply that I feel, or have felt in the past, attacked or objectified in some way, that is now how holistically I view the whole planet. It’s something I’ve learned is just one small piece of my experience. But, holistically as a planet, I think we’re really beautiful and when hard things happen we really rally and support each other"

 

[Delusional 9,221]

The part that really broke my heart was when she was talking about her rape experience. Jesus, I felt punched in the heart 

[Delusional 9,221]

Why have like 0 people commented in this thread? 

Just thought I’d add that the “celebrity” thing was definitely aimed at the kardashians or smthing hahah

[Babylon98 4,830]

can someone upload it pleaseee

[mister max 18,480]

Did she say anything about how the BLACKPINK collab came around?

Thank you for making this summary btw, I'm excited for when I can get to watch the interview on youtube or smth

[Leo 3,000]

Thanks for doing this!

[holy scheisse 20,234]

"Radical acceptance" is a DBT concept

Gaga's about to teach us all DBT skills 

I'm starting to feel this might be one of her best albums tho

[skedaddleBItCh 2,521]

I'm crying at almost 4 in the morning

Gaga we love you so much

When she said that she wanted to guide younger artists because no one else was when she herself was a young artist

[high heeled fem 3]

I was ready for art pop. I think half of the album ppl were ready for not other half 

gaga we love you we have waited and we are so excited 

[Helix 1,357]

39 minutes ago, AlwaysLoveGaga said:

Chromatica is a reminder of the freedom Gaga has as an artist and her love for electronic music and the ability a computer has to make something that is soulful

And that’s on period, seeing her come back to her love for electronic / pop music really makes me so happy 

[Battle 4 Ur Life 5,819]

this interview is unmissable. I can't believe no one's ripped it yet. I know it's not technically legal but dang it. every little monster should be able to watch it.

[ShayCristoforo 10,223]

"-Chromatica was delayed because Gaga wanted to do something more specific and something that can help the world in a focused way.
-Chromatica is a more abstract way to help the world
-Once she did the specific thing, her work with The WHO and spreading kindness, she moved to the abstract: Chromatica"

There. And now we can all stop fighting.
I think it was the perfect decision. 

[EuphoricVibez 9]

1 hour ago, DeIusional said:

The part that really broke my heart was when she was talking about her rape experience. Jesus, I felt punched in the heart 

Same, because I had to deal with it too, and all the memories of that came flooding back.

[ImTired 3,955]

I love how he asked about Blackpink at the end and she did everything but answer his question. Lol

[Ivy 10,787]

Thank you so much for writing all this out!!