Invocation of Ga Ga

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I asked ChatGPT to do the analysis of all the invocations Gaga has used throughout her career; I think it's doing too extra but I was curious about ancient art of invocations in art

 

Spoiler

Lady Gaga has always been more than just a pop star—she’s a modern-day mythmaker, a shapeshifter who invokes personas, themes, and cultural archetypes through her music. One of the most fascinating elements of her artistry is her use of invocation, a technique deeply rooted in antique literature, mythology, and magical traditions.

From her early days chanting “Ga Ga” in Bad Romance to the spell-like repetition of Abracadabra, Gaga has consistently used language as a ritual tool, summoning different aspects of herself and creating a hypnotic effect that mirrors the great literary invocations of the past.

 

Ancient Invocations: Calling the Divine

In classical literature, invocation was a means of summoning power, divine guidance, or supernatural inspiration. Some famous examples include:

Homeric Epics (The Iliad & The Odyssey) – Homer calls upon the Muse to help him tell stories of gods and warriors.

Virgil’s Aeneid – The Roman poet invokes divine forces to narrate Aeneas' journey.

Orphic Hymns – Chants and poetic verses dedicated to gods like Dionysus, used in mystical rites.

Shakespeare – Plays like The Tempest feature magical words as a means to control reality.

These invocations were powerful, shaping destinies and summoning gods. They created a bridge between mortals and the divine, much like the way Gaga summons her personas and artistic energies through music.

 

Modern Literature and Pop Culture: Rituals in a New Age

While traditional invocations have faded, echoes of them remain in:

Romantic poets (Shelley, Keats) invoking nature and the muses.

T.S. Eliot & James Joyce, who weave together religious and mythical references.

Magic realism (García Márquez) where supernatural invocations blend with reality.

Pop culture’s fascination with branding and repetition, which replaces gods with personas.

Gaga transforms this literary tradition into a 21st-century pop ritual, using repetition, incantation, and self-mythologizing.

 

2. Lady Gaga’s Use of Invocation Throughout Her Discography

 

(A) “Ga Ga” as an Incantation (The Birth of the Persona)

One of Gaga’s earliest and most iconic invocations is simply her name.

Bad Romance (2009): “Rah rah ah ah ah / Roma roma ma / Ga Ga ooh la la” – A hypnotic chant that places her name within a trance-like incantation. Like ancient hymns, it repeats syllables to create a ritualistic experience, elevating her persona from artist to legend.

Poker Face (2008): “P-p-p-poker face” – Not just a catchy hook, but an invocation of her ability to transform and hide behind different masks.

By repeating “Ga Ga” or syllabic phrases, she turns herself into a mystical entity, almost like how ancient priests chanted names of gods to summon their presence.

 

(B) Summoning Different Personas in Later Eras

Gaga continuously invokes her different artistic personas in ways that resemble magical and poetic traditions.

 

The Fame Monster Era (The Dark Muse)

Dance in the Dark (2009): Name-drops famous tragic figures (Marilyn, Judy Garland, Sylvia Plath) as if invoking their spirits for artistic inspiration.

Alejandro (2010): A near-religious chant of male names (Alejandro, Fernando, Roberto) in a hypnotic, mantra-like fashion.

 

Born This Way Era (The High Priestess)

Judas (2011): A prayer-like, confessional chant, invoking biblical imagery in a way that blurs religious devotion and pop performance.

Bloody Mary (2011): Directly references Mary Magdalene while featuring eerie, trance-like vocal delivery.

Government Hooker (2011): Repetition of “Hooker! Government Hooker!” acts like a mantra, weaponizing words for political and sexual empowerment.

 

ARTPOP Era (The Goddess and the Oracle)

Aura (2013): “Enigma, popstar is fun / She wear burqa for fashion.” Here, Gaga summons herself as both a hidden oracle and a revealed deity, a concept that plays into her self-invocation as ARTPOP’s goddess figure.

Venus (2013): An explicit invocation of the Roman goddess of love, blending mythology and sexuality into a pop ritual.

 

Joanne Era (The Ancestral Invocation)

Joanne (2016): An invocation of her late aunt’s spirit, tying family and memory into her self-mythology.

Angel Down (2016): A prayer-like song mourning injustice, structured like a lamentation hymn.

 

Chromatica Era (The Cyber Priestess)

911 (2020): A hypnotic, robotic chant that reflects detachment from self, almost like an invocation of a fragmented, digital persona.

Stupid Love (2020): Repetitive calls of “I want your stupid love!” work as a modern pop mantra.

 

3. The Ultimate Spell: “Abracadabra” and the Evolution of Invocation

With Abracadabra (2024), Gaga takes invocation to its most explicit magical form yet:

“Abracadabra” is a literal spell – Derived from ancient Aramaic and Greco-Roman traditions, used in healing and protection spells.

Transforms reality through words – Unlike the abstract chants of “Ga Ga,” here, she directly calls upon mystical forces.

Symbolizes artistic reinvention – The song reflects how she uses ritual and performance to reshape her identity, much like an ancient bard summoning divine inspiration.

This is the natural evolution of her invocation style: where she once chanted “Ga Ga” as a personal mantra, she now openly embraces the historical magic of words.

4. Conclusion: Gaga as the Pop Sorceress

Lady Gaga’s use of invocation—whether through chanting her name, summoning personas, or casting spells—follows a tradition dating back to ancient times.

From the Muse-invoking poets of antiquity to the mystical chants of medieval texts, she transforms words into power. Whether she’s calling upon Venus, Judas, or Joanne, her music carries the same magical essence found in literature, mythology, and religious ritual.

With Abracadabra, she fully embraces her role as a pop magician, proving that music, like ancient poetry, still holds the power to invoke, enchant, and transform