My analysis of Mayhem's lore

[Kayi 2,101]

Omg GGD is back 

Ok, so I recently found what might be the narrative of this album :

Disease is about Stef's illnesses, she's seeking help. The Disease music video illustrates how she seems to find the right person to escape the pain… but it's in fact her toxic, hard-working persona: Lady Mayhem. She is the one who created the Lady Gaga persona. The song is sang by this character pov. Stef mentioned in an interview that after her traumatic experiences, she felt like an empty shell. She became Lady Gaga, a persona stronger and more confident than she was. However, in the Disease music video, we see that the alchemical metamorphosis doesn’t work. Lady Mayhem tries to create a perfect version of Gaga. 

In Abracadabra, the public, the critics, and Lady Mayhem demand that she create a dance track, otherwise, the Lady Gaga persona will die. So she fights, pleading, "Hold me in your heart tonight." This suggests a struggle for artistic survival, where she must conform to expectations to keep her persona alive. The line "Hold me in your heart tonight" could be a desperate call to her audience, asking them to remember and support her, even as she battles against external pressures. She's winning at the end of the music video (and irl bc it's a huge hit). 

Then, in Garden of Eden, she reenacts the Fall of Eve and Adam. She uses performative speech, she knows it will fail, yet she willingly embraces the hedonistic pleasure of this sabbat-like party. But at the same time, it feels like she is seeking the truth. With the esoteric references, it seems like she believed the man was her soulmate. They fall to earth. So it means it failed, but she regrets nothing "Yeah." 

In Perfect Celebrity, she tries to figure out who she is, she searches for her body, trapped in a state of derealization. She also talk about other ppl's preception of her body... But that make her angry. She realizes that the love she receives is artificial, making it difficult to truly connect with others. This realization fuels her anger. 

In Can't Stop the High, there’s a wild party atmosphere, she feels powerful in her drunkenness. It carries a similar vibe to Garden of Eden, but this song leans more into her vulnerability. She wants to fight to not be alone. She recognize that her life got blurry. But hey ! The club wants her... She has hopes that the DJ will bring her to his home and bang her, so she won't be alone. (Freaky ) I'm asking myself, like is the person screaming in the song is Gaga ? This could be why the DJ wants to take her home, because of her voice. The club wants her because of her voice. "So blacked out" it's in the darkness that Lady Gaga appears in Stef's life. Notice how GOE focuses on the idea of falling, while here it focuses on the elevation, she don't want to faint. Beneath the hedonism, there’s a deep fear of ending up alone something she admits she struggled with before meeting Michael. 

In Vanish Into You, she talks about a platonic love, her friendship with Tony Bennett. Yep she mentions her bedside that she shares with Micheal but the picture depicts Tony and her. She wish she could vanish into Tony when she dies. He was one of the rare man in the industry who took care of her. He was his mentor and a real friend. Rip Mr Tony Bennett 🤍. 

Killah expresses the way she tries to feel super confident and intimidating with guys. "If I'm gonna get you home" this time it's her who's going to bring a guy at her home. She wants to get freaky with him and call him a zombie and her, she's his killer. She wants to get him alone under his skin and bone, to wear him like a suit... Freaky. It's a performative speech to feel more confident. She's going to make the guy screams... It's freaky, but this time it's not Gaga's who's going to give her voice but a guy... In a freaky way ofc lol. 

Then there’s ZombieBoy, which follows the story of this zombie guy. She wants to party with him, and there’s a game of seduction. At the end, she wakes up and feels like a zombie in the morning. The happiness was fleeting but the song only focus on the party moment. It’s all fun and fantasy. But there’s a dark realization in the lyrics. This song is a tribute to ZombieBoy, expressing the sadness she feels in letting him go and the comfort of knowing she'll see him in her dreams. The dryness seen in Killah becomes darker here. Alchool and dr*gs give her energy and vitality but when it's dry, it feels zombifying, tiring, and closer to end... The ZombieBoy metaphor is interesting because it evokes the idea of being in an altered state of life, of immortality. Immortality is an illusion, a fantasy. Rip Zombieboy 🤍. Stef realizes that she is mortal and lonely. 

This fear haunts her in LoveDrug, she thought the zombie guy would last a lifetime. Now she wants something that is better than drug, she wants a real love. She seems more conscious on the dancefloor. She fights the sadness feeling and wants to fight for a genuine love. 

In How Bad Do U Want Me, she realize that her partner wants to see her bad, wild, Gaga side she described in Killah. But Stefani feels like a good girl so it turn their relationship into something a little psychotic. The guy is a good guy, he won't give her up even if he doesn't get what he wants. There's a duality between two version of herself. It could be a Gaga vs Stef song. 

Don't call Tonight depicts the weird duality between Gaga and Stef. Stef is addicted to Gaga's promises and lies to feel better. But somehow she scared that she "hurts" her, she says that both committed "crimes". Stef's crimes are her mistakes while Lady Gaga's crimes decribed in the beast evokes more the idea that she's a werewolf that causes damages around her. It's confuse both made mistakes. The screams that she evokes in the previous songs is Gaga's voice. Well Stefani is tired of Gaga's voice (bc she's a singer and she lies to her). 

In Kill for Love she explains that she is a werewolf and she is looking for an honest and pure love. The fact that she recognizes her werewolf thing seems to be a way of acceptance that she has 2 natures. She wants to find someone who love these both sides of herself. "Kill" is a pretty chaotic word to express her feeling. 

In Shadow Of A Man she opens up with her relationship with guys (artistic, professional or romantic relationships). She wants to give her love and talent for worthy motives : "voice" could be her persona's voice telling her to not give up and to use her vocal talent. "And my voice gets tough - Now I got this feelin' - I can't get enough - 'Cause I won't be used for my love and left out to cry" It's performative speech, something that she tells herself to feel more confident and to be powerful since The Fame era. She wants no toxicity from a man. That's why she finally wants to embrace her "Lady Gaga" persona in The Beast. "Lady Gaga" is her protector. 

In The Beast she explains how Stef decides to embrace her Lady Gaga's werewolf. She turns off the lights and turn on the music. The little red on her hands represents Stefani's innocence ripped off by the beast. "You can't hide from who you are" because she is a famous superstar, and everyone in her neiborhood knows her. That's why Stefani embrace this persona. She said in an interview that this song could also be from her lover point of view. Both work and make sense. 

Blade of Grass is about a concrete story, the day Michael asked her how should he propose her. She asked him to propose her with a blade of grass. Something that is natural, unartificial. “Hold me until I die and I’ll make you brand new” refers to Vanish into You. And Michael says that he will give her the air he's breathing. No institution can get how infactuated they are for each other. 

I wrote all these stuffs to defend the best Gaga's song of all time (I'm joking but I love it) DIE WITH A SMILE !! The theme of a battle for love, the theme of fearing the death, the feeling of ataraxia, the dream, the night... Are all in this song. It's a perfect ending. They scream together while in previous songs, it's Gaga who screams bc she's werewolf and a singer you see ? And the fact that there's Bruno's voice on this song materialize a bit more the lover described by Gaga which is Michael. 

MAYHEM writings is filled with bluriness. There's some repetitive images/patterns by using multiple times some specific words or synonymous (such as light, night, tonight, bite, poem, desire, secret, hit, dj, zombie, dream, high, dance, garden, shadow, love, bite, mirror, knife, scream, poison, darkness, tied, poison, voice, drug, ghost, etc...). All these words create a whole setting, a dark one. It brings cohesiveness to the whole album also.

Her singing support all these feelings, sometimes she feels possessed, sometimes it seems like both Stef and Gaga sings on one song, etc...

The narrator and the characters described are sometimes hard to differentiate but are palpables by the feelings of the narrator. It's very theatrical in some way.

There's multiple readings possible of some of these songs, there's literal and metaphoric readings of it, the line between are blurry... Is it a party or is it her life ?

The psychotic obsessions with these words, the inability to sometimes get fully the identity of the narrator, the multiplicity of the reading, etc... creates a real mayhem. It's in a very odd way her most cohesive album ever. Not the easiest one to completely get cause it's did on purpose... It's post-modern art writing style.

The photoshoots perfectly fit to the whole album vibes. Notice how her clones got the same look as her on most of her photoshoot. 

Edited 5 hours ago by Kayi

[Born2BeBrave 35]

The production on MAYHEM is second to none in her career… It’s so pristine. Especially in Dolby Atmos on AirPod Pro. 

[Kayi 2,101]

Just now, Born2BeBrave said:

The production on MAYHEM is second to none in her career… It’s so pristine. Especially in Dolby Atmos on AirPod Pro. 

Fr, the layering is amazingly done 

[Starmie25 16,221]

The album has a very heavy, but still melancholy feel to it.

Even tracks like "Killah", "The Beast", "Vanish" feel heavy.

[FATCAT 59,611]

Yes! It's so good

[Starmie25 16,221]

The album has a very heavy, but still melancholy feel to it.

Even tracks like "Killah", "The Beast", "Vanish" feel heavy.

[Kayi 2,101]

23 minutes ago, Starmie25 said:

The album has a very heavy, but still melancholy feel to it.

Even tracks like "Killah", "The Beast", "Vanish" feel heavy.

Yeah for real, the ending of "ZombieBoy" make me feel sad. And "LoveDrug" feels so cinematic and melancholic too.

But "Killah" ending feels more like turning like a psycho. 

Edited 16 hours ago by Kayi

[Born2BeBrave 35]

1 hour ago, Kayi said:

Fr, the layering is amazingly done 

It’s ironic because that’s always been her downfall for me— good lyrics but extremely subpar production… 

I’m going to get shade for saying this… but the layering and sonic quality is honestly deserving to be looked at one of the top 10 best of all time… up there with Thriller, Bad by MJ and then of course the best album sonically of all time- Rumours by Fleetwood Mac 

[Born2BeBrave 35]

1 minute ago, Born2BeBrave said:

It’s ironic because that’s always been her downfall for me— good lyrics but extremely subpar production… 

I’m going to get shade for saying this… but the layering and sonic quality is honestly deserving to be looked at one of the top 10 best of all time… up there with Thriller, Bad by MJ and then of course the best album sonically of all time- Rumours by Fleetwood Mac 

Yes quoting myself lol.. but to continue and follow up on this argument—- 

This is the kind of production perfection that gets you Album of The Year at the Grammys 

[Kayi 2,101]

2 minutes ago, Born2BeBrave said:

It’s ironic because that’s always been her downfall for me— good lyrics but extremely subpar production… 

I’m going to get shade for saying this… but the layering and sonic quality is honestly deserving to be looked at one of the top 10 best of all time… up there with Thriller, Bad by MJ and then of course the best album sonically of all time- Rumours by Fleetwood Mac 

It's your opinion I won't criticize your top 10, I love these albums too. 

But I agree, Gaga's first albums productions were overproduced despite being very good.

[Kayi 2,101]

Is there an interview in which she talks about her writing process ? 

Edited 6 hours ago by Kayi