Judas song meanings

[JoeCool 668]

The name Judas comes up quite often in gospel readings during Holy Week.  Made me think of the song.  I'm Catholic and love it.  Song and video

 

 

 

 

I see the song as being in love with someone you know will betray or hurt you.  But I've read too it's about feeling stronger after being betrayed 

[PartySick 168,658]

It's about growth.

The only reason Jesus became the Messiah is because Judas betrayed him.

The only reason you're as strong as you are now is because of your experiences.

[Ladle Ghoulash 38,651]

@bxr and @chewing on pearlswrote some really great pop academic stuff about the song in another thread, so I figured I’d tag them and see if they wanted to contribute!

[Horny Chicken 10,274]

1 hour ago, PartySick said:

It's about growth.

The only reason Jesus became the Messiah is because Judas betrayed him.

The only reason you're as strong as you are now is because of your experiences.

I don’t want to grow. I want revenge. 

 

Edited 20 hours ago by Horny Chicken

[bxr 1,147]

50 minutes ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

@bxr and @chewing on pearlswrote some really great pop academic stuff about the song in another thread, so I figured I’d tag them and see if they wanted to contribute!

Many thanks for the hat-tip and tag!

I actually just revisited a write-up riff I drafted back when the song was released (which, happy 15th to the tune, liturgically speaking —time, flies) … I don’t really know its general thesis, it’s more of a collection of conceptual associations, but it sort of reads like a montage … I think I was really intrigued at the interplay between the Mary / Magdalene archetypes and Rilke’s interpretation of the sovereign woman, this “humanity of woman, borne its full time in suffering and humiliation [who] will come to light when she will have stripped off the conventions of mere femininity in the mutations of her outward status…” … and somehow Gaga’s Letters to a Young Poet tattoo as some emblem of this “right to bare arms …” (the metaphor made sense in my mind at the time) … but and/so all of that is to say … fwiw, just for the sake of Palm Sunday pop music sundry … the notes from those years ago

Spoiler

Aside from being an absolutely masterful piece of work – completely; Judas is an immaculate conception of the most divine du jour…

Betrayal runs through the track like bad romances through the veins of the Haus madam. There is a betrayal of comfortable pop song structure, the assault on the eardrums, the screams and distortion, the chord progression into further confusion… This song runs train on conductors… this sounds like Bad Romance’s bigger, badder, biblical older sister who just got back from Barnard – educated and disinfatuated – that older sister. Betrayal runs through the very being of Judas. Ju-da Ju-da-ah-ah… There’s a deep ingrained cohesion to every thread and theme of Judas. It opens with just vocals, flips to just instrumentation, then tandems to a crucifixtious climax – and that’s just the first three signatures #betrayals The verses go HAM on Sunday brunch…Thematically, from Mary Magdalene to Peter, from Judas to Jesus, channeling to Gaga – iconographies illustrating betrayals of biblical proportions… Anatomically, the inevitable unironic fist pumps betraying any sense of social decency… and yet being a product of the preeminent voice of a generation – the anthem of the slanderer becomes the cultural signature…

The beat is betrayal – the hit-and-miss – the battling tonalities between verse and chorus – the dominatrix versus the distressed damsel, the hammer against the mist, the pulse and the pacifier… Samson and Cyndi Lauper… but beyond the beast beat of the hit-and-miss lies the betrayed beat of the hidden miss…

Just as she could never love a man so purely, nary could many love such precisely-executed reckless abandon of modern “pop” so uncomfortably, and never has Gaga preached so defiantly:

“In the most Biblical sense, I am beyond repentance. Fame hooker, prostitute wench, vomits her mind”

Biblically beyond repentance… salvation transcended, she is beyond forgiveness… how could man possibly forgive such a creature… Gaga, prostitute to her own birthed Fame… Mary Magdalene, the prostitute wench… just as Judas betrayed Jesus, so Gaga betrays her blood, and Magdalene her body… and so comes to fruition the collective fear of granting these women equality given their susceptibility to the temptation of passion… in the Biblical sense the independent woman, the free bitch, is the great social fear… vomiting her mind to the public disgust of a regurgitated cultural renaissance…

“But in the cultural sense, I just speak in future tense.”

Culturally speaking solely in future tense… Gaga voicing her birth rite to bare arms…

Rilke, Sir Ranier forever inked on his fair Lady’s arm… spoke highly of the futuristic female… and in so doing, seemingly blazed the trail his pariah prodigy in living poetry would follow…

“The girl and the woman, in their new, their own unfolding, will but in passing be imitators of masculine ways, good and bad, and repeaters of masculine professions.”

… Ju-dah – note that Gaga is not speaking as Judas, nor Christ, but rather Magdalene, or the every other woman – the every lover of the enigmatic rebel… her identity marked by the necessary burden of mocked masculinity… guilty by association, admonished for adoration… and yet, still repeatedly professing her unyielding love for Judas, baby…

“When he comes to me, I am ready, I’ll wash his feet with my hair if he needs. Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain, Even after three times, he betrays me.”

As Mary Magdalene, the filthy fringe element, the social plague, akin to the one who washed Jesus’ feet… beyond the burden of any and everything she only answers to capital HIM… as the woman whose tongue lives through her heart, where logic, reason, and rationale have no meaning or substance… accepting the burdens of original sin, like Eve, for being born with the ability the bear life again…

“Women, in whom life lingers and dwells more immediately, more fruitfully and more confidently, must surely have become fundamentally riper people, more human people, than easygoing man, who is not pulled down below the surface of life by the weight of any fruit of his body, and who, presumptuous and hasty, under-values who he thinks he loves.”

… and in that ability lies the inevitability of giving birth to sin… and yet therein lies the greater inevitability: that should we let the woman choose her own fate, should there be no limitations on her legal decision-making process and execution… she will choose against virtue, and when tempted with the beautifully bittersweet sorrows of passion, Judas will be the one she runs to… however… that very intuition, that very flaw and imperfection of empathy against conventional “righteousness,” is what makes the woman that much more human… as she battles for the right to freely choose wrong, the knowledge and pursuit bringing her that much closer to the divine, as it was Jesus himself who sat closest with the sinners: Mary Magdalene… Simon Peter, the same apostle who denied Jesus three times en route to crucifixion, was the same one who Jesus chose to found the Church; the same Peter who as the rock, taught that just as love is like a brick – you can: build a house or sink a dead body – so, he can build a Church, after leaving Jesus three times out to sea…

“This humanity of woman, borne its full time in suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she will have stripped off the conventions of mere femininity in the mutations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching today will be surprised and struck by it. Some day…”

Some day in the future tense… she’ll bring him down, bring him down, down. A king with no crown, king with no crown…

“… some day there will be girls and women whose name no longer signify merely the opposite of masculine, but something in itself, something that makes one think, not of any complement and limit, but only of life and existence: the feminine human being.”

the catharsis won’t be defined by the association to the sinner or savior… the single will be an independent entity… and inevitably – she will always get the last word… Ju-dah, Ju-da-ah-ah – Ju-dah, Ga-Ga-ah

“Judas kiss me if offenced – or wear an ear condom next time.”

If ever Gaga had a Pop Gospel moment… #thus: kiss me if offenced… send me to crucify; or abort the sound of the underground before it hits public consciousness… either way #wrapitup

Watch This Space:

When Jesus was eating with his twelve disciples that evening, he said, “One of you will surely hand me over to my enemies… One of you men who has eaten with me from this dish will betray me. The Son of Man will die, as the Scriptures say. Woe to that man… it would have been good for that man if he had not been born…” this way, baby… ear condom #lethalsounds #biblicallyspeaking #goatgrazing

Whew, to be a cradle Catholic … Pa(w)lms up

Edited 19 hours ago by bxr

[bxr 1,147]

40 minutes ago, Horny Chicken said:

I don’t want to grow, I want revenge. 

“all progress in the world has been at the hands of unsatisfied people…” sometimes revenge matures into the metamorphosis of moral anger 

[chewing on pearls 620]

our podcast episode about the Judas music video comes out on Tuesday! 

we basically discuss how Gaga (as Mary Magdalene) being torn about protecting Jesus from his fate is really about her own relationship to trangression/destiny through the Born This Way "theology" of sorts... and through her expression as a whole

if the Born This Way video sets up these dueling deities fighting for good/evil, the Magdalene in Judas is somewhat like their earthly child, attempting to intercept the Messiah from being sentenced to death and ultimately accepting that his mortal fate was prophesied to save humanity

Gaga may be saying that she must accept the fate "God" and her fans and the culture has given her... through accepting her past darkness and her future destiny as a "fame hooker" who speaks in "future tense"

[chewing on pearls 620]

being "in love" with Judas is controversial on the surface, but also speaks to Gaga's understanding that Judas' betrayal fulfilled an Old Testament prophecy... to love the betrayer is to accept that his actions serve a greater good. just as Gaga's own personal, professional, cultural transgressions serve a purpose that is much larger than herself

[Alxjcgn 1,734]

4 hours ago, JoeCool said:

The name Judas comes up quite often in gospel readings during Holy Week.  Made me think of the song.  I'm Catholic and love it.  Song and video

 

 

 

 

I see the song as being in love with someone you know will betray or hurt you.  But I've read too it's about feeling stronger after being betrayed 

Once in an interview she said it is about forgiving your betrayer 

[liamgaga 660]

2 hours ago, chewing on pearls said:

our podcast episode about the Judas music video comes out on Tuesday! 

we basically discuss how Gaga (as Mary Magdalene) being torn about protecting Jesus from his fate is really about her own relationship to trangression/destiny through the Born This Way "theology" of sorts... and through her expression as a whole

if the Born This Way video sets up these dueling deities fighting for good/evil, the Magdalene in Judas is somewhat like their earthly child, attempting to intercept the Messiah from being sentenced to death and ultimately accepting that his mortal fate was prophesied to save humanity

Gaga may be saying that she must accept the fate "God" and her fans and the culture has given her... through accepting her past darkness and her future destiny as a "fame hooker" who speaks in "future tense"

What is the name of your podcast please?

[bxr 1,147]

2 hours ago, chewing on pearls said:

our podcast episode about the Judas music video comes out on Tuesday! 

we basically discuss how Gaga (as Mary Magdalene) being torn about protecting Jesus from his fate is really about her own relationship to trangression/destiny through the Born This Way "theology" of sorts... and through her expression as a whole

if the Born This Way video sets up these dueling deities fighting for good/evil, the Magdalene in Judas is somewhat like their earthly child, attempting to intercept the Messiah from being sentenced to death and ultimately accepting that his mortal fate was prophesied to save humanity

Gaga may be saying that she must accept the fate "God" and her fans and the culture has given her... through accepting her past darkness and her future destiny as a "fame hooker" who speaks in "future tense"

2 hours ago, chewing on pearls said:

being "in love" with Judas is controversial on the surface, but also speaks to Gaga's understanding that Judas' betrayal fulfilled an Old Testament prophecy... to love the betrayer is to accept that his actions serve a greater good. just as Gaga's own personal, professional, cultural transgressions serve a purpose that is much larger than herself

Homiletics on parade  

I was inclined to approach Judas from a liberation or feminist theology lens, but how you articulate the dynamics, it feels sort of distinctly … “zeitgeist theology” … a “theology” of the literal “Spirit of the age” … as Gaga’s core identity is predicated upon this relationship with human identity and fame … celebrity iconography, and her sense of intentional artistry therein sort of reflects the Imago Dei, and human identity as inherently created in divine likeness … so, her burden as everything you capture, deals crucially with the sacred and profane nature of one’s cultural presence … to reclaim maybe the death of her pre-Fame self in how she releases the demons and/or (industry? institutional? patriarchal? societal?) betrayals, and so resurrects a sovereign self … however she emerges triumphant, due to and despite the transgressions and submission or surrender, is the lived example for her audience or community … or if she is able to live through fatal fame in its contemporary form, she liberates the artists or audience community from the normalization of industry dehumanization in order to create for pop culture … to get to that point, maybe that’s the Judas adoption of everything precedent (which BTW, ARTPOP, ASIB lithium, etc. … and still, she persists) 

Again, no idea if any of this stream-of-consciousness makes relevant sense, but just musing on the moment—looking forward to your episode!

[chewing on pearls 620]

2 hours ago, liamgaga said:

What is the name of your podcast please?

our podcast is called Chewing on Pearls! it's on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, Google music, etc etc. 

[chewing on pearls 620]

1 hour ago, bxr said:

if she is able to live through fatal fame in its contemporary form, she liberates the artists or audience community from the normalization of industry dehumanization in order to create for pop culture

so perfectly said, just as Jesus was the "lamb of God," destined for slaughter in order to salvage humanity form sin.... perhaps at the time, Gaga felt like she was a lamp for slaughter, taking a metaphorical stoning on behalf of artists and the various communities that identified with her extreme relationship to art, performance, and the public sphere

[bxr 1,147]

27 minutes ago, chewing on pearls said:

so perfectly said, just as Jesus was the "lamb of God," destined for slaughter in order to salvage humanity form sin.... perhaps at the time, Gaga felt like she was a lamp for slaughter, taking a metaphorical stoning on behalf of artists and the various communities that identified with her extreme relationship to art, performance, and the public sphere

Oh, wow … the lamb’s liberation from Planet GOAT

Spoiler

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. [ … ] Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed … For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

 

[TheARTPOPball 1,123]

The intentional meaning was to represent her struggles for still wanting to be with a man who betrayed her. A feat a lot of people face. She knows the man is bad, and throwing it back to bad romance, she forgives men and accepts them for what they are, even the dark parts, and I think Judas, while also sonically similar, kind of continues that torch she lit in bad romance. She is battling with her discernment. She’s on the edge of letting go but she doesn’t know how to separate where she draws the line between what is considered “enough” to finally let go and give into her desire for something that serves her better. 
 

unintentionally (or maybe also intentionally) , I also think that this also perfectly describes battling with sin. As the bible states it’s in people’s nature to do so, and while we know we shouldn’t lie, steal, cheat, etc. we still end up giving in during moments of weakness. 
 

I think this story is touched on again in million reasons (but is more focused on the love aspect) I think one day the trilogy will be complete, with a song about Michael, and blade of grass might be the bridge between Judas and that song