gagablog 73: "Aura": Puffimpression

I woke this morning and turned on the news an remembered that tonight is the televised interview with Edward Snowden, making this the perfect day to write about "Aura". The cosmic gagamagical connection is of course looking behind the veil, and this is one reason Aura was quickly one of my favorite songs because I absolutely love the divinely inspired way Gaga presents this idea in the song. It's one of music's greatest superpowers to use double-meaning in songs. It probably has much older roots, but in the rock, rap, blues and pop music world, double-meaning goes back to the spiritual songs that people sang during slavery that they actually used as codes to pass messages and help each other escape slavery. I go into a little more detail about this in my book "All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Smoking Weed", dedicated to Gaga and all who liberate weed, and available here: http://www.amazon.com/Really-Need-Know-Learned-Smoking/dp/1481228749 and on Kindle - please pass it around! I was predisposed to focus on the double-meaning because of how Aura was introduced. Everyone was calling it Burqa. Just now as I googled 'burqa' for spelling the results were "burqa, burqa ban, burqa lady gaga, burqa avenger, burqa history of" - this in itself says a lot about the intense nature of the burqa idea right now and Gaga's success in connecting with it, becoming an icon for it. And all from using the word burqa twice in the song, and sometimes in fashion, but mostly for building the song Aura upon this idea, introducing it in the first verse and introducing the song to us as "Burqa" or "Aura/Burqa". It's more than "just" double-meaning, too, though this is one of the most powerrful aspects of music, because of the mystical nature of the idea of a Veil and the Feminine, Girl or Goddess, underneath. Gaga plays this to perfect, powerful effect, the song is awesome, and I know I don't quite get it all but I want to say what I can, now, before learning more about it. All I really know from other little monsters is that it was called "Burqa", I have not heard anything else that might be being said about it. So this is all going to be based on how I hear the lyrics, I'll probably redo it after reading them and researching what Gaga says about the song, but I wanted to get my "puffimpressions" documented. I did not go with calling it my "Getting it Wrong" series, though that was what I was thinking, and certainly fit my disastrous prediction of a Broncos Superbowl win, but now that I've actually gotten around to writing it I decided any interpretation is "good" because "artpop could mean anything", and even misunderstandings are interesting and provide quirky clues. Like I thought she said "artformacological" and who knows what else until just a week ago when someone posted the actual lyric, of Bloody Mary. But I still want to go back and try to make some expression of what it could have meant, the way i misheard it. Maybe this is clinging to the bliss of ignorance, resisting something that is about to wake me up, but let me get it out of my system. I still don't know what she says in the very first verse of Aura, this is how I hear it: I killed my former Anne or "farmer and" or "former something I don't understand" - but in my edited copy they blur the end of this verse and I can't imagine what it could be that they censored it out. I always "thought" it said "former friend" and maybe this is my mind filling in an idea, or relates to something I heard about Gaga which would be a way of addressing it, but when I listen closely I just don't hear her saying "friend" - and can't figure out why Wal-Mart would not allow her to say that on their version, or what they are censoring here. Left her in the trunk on Highway 10 - I assume a California Highway, and a quick search made me think what became interstate 10, the most southernmost interstate, running from CA to FL. That road has lots of desert toward the California side, implying a car, her car, left out in a remote area with her victim's body in the trunk. Put the knife under the hood I guess saying she hid the knife in the engine, but could have some code-like meaning. The car itself could be a metaphor, too, as well as the victim - a vehicle to get her where she is and a connection or helper (or tyrant - I don't know the word andwhat it might imply here) who was sacrificed to get there. If you find it, send it straight to Hollywoood This says she can be found in Hollywood, either implying as a result of killing her friend, or just that she expects to be there. The former is again filling in from the idea I assumed was a myth about Gaga that she killed her friend and stole her style or something and that is how she got so famous. If this is a clever way to address that myth then this makes perfect sense, but it might have nothing to do with that. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaa a a a a a a Aura, Aura, Aura, Aura, aura, Aura This maniacal laughter suggests she got away with it, like a crime-boss, she is above the law and you might just send the knife to Hollywood to get it back to her to connect with her and earn her favor, not to the police as evidence - either way she does not seem worried about it. And then she let's the percussive "A"'spin off the electronic/fake voice quality, like a cinematic device to both end that whole "story-line" or myth, and to wrap it all into the "Aura" chant. This suggests, to someone like me (who loves Gaga, senses her originality and does not really believe she killed anyone and certainly don't think she has to steal anything, as genius and divinely-inspired as she so obviously is, that can't be stolen, only like borrowed and channeled from the divine anyway) that this whole myth is part of the Aura of becoming famous, the celebrity image. She already, immediately, introduces this mystical juxtaposition of two meanings of Aura, just in the lead-up to saying the word. It's like she is saying the Fame Image is an Aura, but the usual use of the word aura is something everyone has, like a glow of their life-energy. Even without saying anything about it, just introducing the word this way, Gaga does this amazing thing of reconciling the micro-macro paradox. In a way it is inviting you, the listener, who has her own aura, to make the most of it, make it some sort of Fame Image, live up to the best energy you have, live up to your dreams. This is implied by associating Fame Image with the word "Aura" but the strongest message is the idea that Gaga's presentation of herself is like an aura surrounding her. This starts to take on the mystical meaning of the veil over the nature of reality and magic and also the fame-personal meaning of the aura hiding the real girl underneath. These themes get even more complex throughout the song, and it has so much more than double-meaning but becomes multifaceted like a gem, as any good mystical writing is. The whole effect of taking off the electronic sound of the voice, and bringing it from the background into the foreground by the time Aura is chanted, is like a version of peeling off the layer, removing the veil, in an audio way. I took a break writing this and was listening to Morrissey and the Smiths, and "A Rush and a Push and the Land That we Stand on Is Ours" came on and the intro, like coming out of a dream or back from the dead, is the same effect, a tweaked vocal that becomes clearer and closer, then changes to real. So the rest of the lyrics, with a couple of exceptions, are in the most vibrant voice of almost singing directly to you, without any of the Aura, and of course the song itself is about the Aura, and in this way it presents another mystical idea about the aura, of everyone, but taken to its full bloom - it becomes a irresistible trap or escape route, where you can't help but want to discover the most about the realest person underneath. I'm not a wandering slave This seems to be a reference to stereotypes about women who wear burqas, defending against the idea that they are wearing it out of subjugation to a man, or a comment that Gaga herself is not a pop star, tour/wandering for someone else's benefit and profit, but in control of herself, her destiny, and her fashion. Or that, just as Islamic women and others are not submitting to a man, but to the divine (My Islamic Literature professor, Alan Godlas, told us the literal meaning of "Islam" was this submission to the divine will), Gaga's passions for fashion are not the whims of other humans, society, or "men", except artists, representing the divine. They are divine revelations through divine inspiration directly to Gaga and through other artists channeling it. I am a woman of choice This emphasizes the same point, and focuses on the fact that she is a woman. This is again to defy the mentality that does treat people and especially women as slaves and to say that no one should accept this, we should all work for justice, the free choice of all women and all people. My veil is protection for the gorgeousness of my face This explains the purpose of the burqa. At first you might think it means to protect her face, to keep it gorgeous. It does do that, but that meaning would best be conveyed "to protect the gorgeousness" or "to protect my face" and saying "protection for the gorgeousness" implies protecting someone else, you, from the gorgeousness of her face. The idea of the burqa as a symbol, and it's function to hide a woman's face, call into question the ideas that lead to sexism. If a man is attracted to a woman's face, for example, is it "her fault" or "his fault"? You could say there is nothing wrong with it, so it is no one's fault, but certainly men have done bad things as a result of being attracted to women. Of course it's not all bad, but one way to avoid bad outcomes is to avoid it as much as possible altogether. We seem eager, the western mentality seems eager, to say a burqa is a burden or oppression of women, like blaming them for being beautiful and having to hide it. I've heard interviews with women who wear burqas and they say it makes them feel liberated, not judged for their appearance or attracting unwanted attention. From this perspective it seems like the burqa protects men from he power of women's allure and therefore protects women from the unwanted attraction. This seems like it is not really blaming women for being beautiful, more like it blames men for being less in control of their lust, but in a way just removes the blame by removing the whole issues in a way, like acknowledging that it is natural for men to get too attracted, not excusing the excesses of that, but dealing with it at a basic, fundamental level. I don't know how much of the pro-burqa argument, or which elements of it, Gaga might be trying to promote, but there is so much meaning in the way she presents these ideas. All of the same factors about a woman being veiled from the over-excitement of men could also apply to the Mystery being veiled from the aggressive grasp of all humanity. The real power and beauty of Aura, to me, is how Gaga makes the most of this multiple-meaning, and how simply she does it with a few changes in a few words. The reason "Burqa" is such a powerful symbol, the reason there is so much conflict over it, for instance in Europe where there are burqa bans and protests to wear them, is because of the nature of the veil between east and west and the veil between men and women. The western mentality that is basically afraid of the burqa has a very hpocritical stance on women's beauty. On the one hand, Western societies show women in sexy and alluring ways as much as possible, but on the other hand they have some extreme puritanical and moralistic elements that basically try to suppress all sexuality. Especially in America it is like we have exchanged actual sexuality for super-presentational, Billboard sexuality. We then say to beautiful women "you are dressed too sexy" and to girls who are too young to be sexy "wear this word on your butt". It's like we are scared of actual women and actual sexuality, so we try to turn it all into images, etc, we can consume and control. The burqa scares us (western, sexist mentality) because it returns the element of mystery to women, establishes that they are like the divine, all powerful, unfathomable, even untouchable - except that the veil can be removed, at the divine feminine will. The west resents the burqa because it defies their "advertising-only" idea of sexuality, in fact it shifts all of sexuality to a more private affair, not public at all, or subject to public scrutiny or judgement. The west is so obsessed with shame about sexuality, a public opinion, that it is literally threatened by mystery and the idea that people can do whatever they want that doesn't hurt anybody in private. The veil is also between the public and private worlds, and this is really such a powerful symbol I could write a whole book about this song, but I want to just make some more major points here. I can't really speak certainly, only imagine, about the eastern mentality, but the western one is not all bad, just the hypocricy of it. I have no problem with advertising sex, as long as you aren't also trying to shame people for enjoying it, selling it, or giving it away. This is really only beginning to lift the veil on this one mystery, between men and women, east and west, public and private, and mant other things, but all of it is based on the association of veil with burqa and all it's implications. But the way I usually respond to the word veil, since I think more about nature and reality than fashion, is the veil between worlds, and all this means. As The Goddess, as this whole gagablog is trying to focus on seeing Gaga, any talk about a veil implies the veil of/between the world and ultimate reality. The ultimate reality is obvious to those who focus on experiencing it, but a mystery to all - the ultimate reality is the Mystery that all mystical and spiritual endeavors strive for, the religious and mystical are the ones who talk about the veil over or of reality, nature, the divine, different names depending on what you call secret and what you call obvious. The answer is Love, but it can sound cliche or hurtful to those who feel outside of it, though the mystery is that Love is everything, including the pain of feeling the loss of it or understanding it too narrowly. It's easier to talk about since Gaga identified herself as the Goddess of Love, but even before she did that, and even if you weren't focused on her for years beforehand as a goddess, making a song about a / "the" veil has those kinds of implications. More about this later, though. INTERLUDE: I started this a few days ago, then came back to it, today, on May 31st. Just before typing this I turned on the TV, just to see if anything was on, and happened to tune in at the moment of the live broadcast about the release of an American taken hostage by the Taliban 5 years ago. I guess it was a big surprise, and of course it was a surprise to me to happen to turn on the TV at the moment of a live broadcast, and one of such significance, since the situation and maybe even negotiations have been taking place for possibly the entire Obama presidency, though they are saying it was all mediated by Qatar. I won't get sidetracked into the implications of all of this, except to say there are implications for "media magic", which this gagablog is mostly concerned with, and the magical connections between our inner experience and the media we create or encounter. I will just add that one other magical message came in the form of a commercial, from the government, encouraging kids to go to other worlds by reading. I noticed it because of a reference to Oz, among references to Harry Potter and Alice and Wonderland, etc. Then there were more Oz refrences, like the Emerald City, and it really got me excited. The fact that the Oz BOOKS are being promoted by the government, now, a century later and after years of suppression, means so much to me, a turning point towards the glorious future I've been expecting. Especially now, as I keep saying and will soon write my book about how Gaga fulfills the Oz prophecy. Also there was news of a volcano, I don't know where, but always impressive and significant, and anther story about protests in India over rape and police not serving justice. It is hopeful to me that people are protesting and it is making the news, and while there may have been improvements in ending misogyny in India, here, and everywhere, there is still a long way to go. This is one reason the divine feminine is veiled, protected. We need to be protected from her gorgeousness, it overpowers us and is always drawing us in, but we cannot enter with force or violence, the veil keeps all that away. The only kind of "violence" allowed beyond the veil is the welcome struggle of love, sex. Once we overcome all violence, as a species, and are focused on eradicating all vestiges of it, we will be fit to be in the direct presence of the Goddess and all that means, with all the "powers" in the cosmos, not at our command, but in grace and harmony with them and helping even them to heal and reach their dreams. You want to pity me cuz you want a woman in love or "one man love" or "underpinning me" or "you wonder if it's because"- okay, I have to admit I have no idea what this line is and only a feeling what it means. I've known it would trip me up, then when I stopped writing this for a couple of days I've listened to it over and over but can't figure it out. I'll be glad to finish this and look it up, but I had to include my interpretation of Aura even while this is a mystery to me, because it is one of my favorite songs and means so much to me, even when I know I don't know it all. But I also feel like I have been keeping myself intentionally stupid, behind, slow, in the past - I've known that keeping up with Gaga would require getting up to light speed, which transforms you into an artist, and I'm ready to do that now, an hold nothing back. But not knowing this line exemplifies my intentional stupidity, holding myself back, holding the world back - just like smoking cigarettes, which I quit again a week ago. Expect the collapse of the military-industrial-bankingclan-oil companies-right-wing-complex any day or night now. Anyway, my impression of this line is basically something about other people's, the public's, impression of one's status or availability. I guess I get this idea based on the following line, too. I think it's kind of about belonging to your lover, not in the negative sense as a possession, but in the positive, "in love with each other" sense that you want to have that one person to belong with. The idea is possibly that wearing a veil indicates you are seeking to attract others stricty on your own terms or not at all, but not to seem available. I don't know what cultures are like where women wear veils, it does seem unjust to me that some places force everyone through laws or custom to wear them, but even more unjust that people would outlaw them, as if they are trying to outlaw that culture itself. But I know one western argument against the veil is that it is men treating women like property by covering them. To me this seems like projection, since we have terrible examples in the west of treating women like property, and maybe they do in those cultures too, but if we take into account many women's own positive ideas about the veil there must be many good things about it. I see a parallel to the west trying to force the east, China, to accept our internet culture, including porn, when they want to, and apparently succeed, in blocking it. I come down on both sides of this debate in different ways. Anyway, this is further digression because this line is beyond so many veils, to me, and I will return to it when I learn what it really is. But for now, I basically think if it as "public judgement of the singer's relationship status, or any sort of status or identity marker, possibly represented by the veil." But in the bedroom the size of hims more than enough This is the only line I have "research" on because Gaga once answered the interview question "what do you look for in a man?" or boyfriend by saying "a big dick". The whole idea of "him" being big in the bedroom implies having a big cock (as I write this, the baseball announcer says "he's not afraid to come inside, and he'll come inside, then come inside again, then come inside again.") I think this is just to say he's an ideal or good enough guy for Gaga, a guy who has what she wants. This also makes me think about the previous line, since I don't know what it means, but it could be about women wearing a burqa and outsiders' judgments of them, which might include that women in burqas might by polygamous, in which case the size of him could be more than enough for more than one woman. But this is one reason to find out the actual previous lyric, because I have no idea, really. But somewhere in there a man is introduced in the song, or implied, because there is no mention of a man previously, unless we assume that she is not a slave to a man. I'm way behind in actually knowing things about Gaga's personal life, and I might sound really silly, but I guess the last thing i heard was that she and Taylor were monogamous and together for years now. I don't know if I believed it, with disappointment, ha ha, or just decided to take her word for it, but there would not be much reason to expect she is singing about him being more than enough for more than one person if she is singing about herself and she's really that monogamous. Also, someone recently asked me if being polyamorous was like a pre-requisite for being a little monster, if that many of us identify that way there is probably something to it in the example of our mother monster. But she did say all the lyrics on all of Artpop are literal and autobiographical, I think, and there seems to be some flirting around and making out and having sex with other people in the other songs of the album, so that could be the case here, too. And I'm sure other little monsters know much more about this, as much as Gaga expressed wanting to keep her private life private, but I'm too old, age-wise, I guess, to talk with many of them so I'll just write it here and hope people talk with me. I guess the reason I am obsessed with it is because it fits my new sexual revolution idea, the one we will win this time instead of retreating. Much respect to the hippies and others, but we need to renew that revolution to honor all they did, and win it this time because we can, thanks to their efforts, continued efforts since then, an improving magic and technology. And we really need to, to save the world. It basically makes me sad that people can still be so lonely, even with so much more connectivity with the internet. And even with increasing sex facilitated by the internet, there still seems to be s sleazy, shameness about it. And I can't help but mostly blame boys, initially, for being generally gross and girls evolved responses to that. So I guess my solution is not that everyone should just hook up with everyone else as much as possible, but if you are with a good person share them around some and raise the standard, and availability, for everyone. If more and more good people get to have better and better sex, and get better at it, good things will happen. What else could this mean? Maybe from a cosmic perspective the bedroom is the world of dreams so he is a big dreamer - tat sounds even sillier but I guess it all depends on the previous line to solve the mystery. Do you wanna see me naked lover? Oh Jesus, it's a fire, this line is so hot. This line both establishes and teases to peel away the whole angelic host of veils. First of all, of course you want to see her naked, she's the hottest woman there is. Or from a mystical perspective, you want to see the naked reality, pure love, you don't want to mess with all the bullshit and non-love any more. It's a rhetorical question but it is also like a magic spell, the answer is yes, what can I do to make that happen, I'll do anything for you, etc. Then there is the whole meaning of the word "lover". If you are her one and only true lover, then this is an invitation to make love, but of course it shows her ultimate power over me, that I wait for her to ask, I'm helpless to my overwhelming desire for her, to make love with her whenever she wants. But even I, or you, or Taylor, envied the most by the most people because he is with Gaga and is therefore the hottest guy on the planet, he still has to wait for her to lift the veil, all that "power" of hotness is nothing compared to her power and hotness. And that goes for all women, it is just the feminine difference for ya'll as embodiments of the Goddess, sorry boys (at least boys like me who don't dress up). Now if this is just a general "lover" like your waitress might call you, and you and I could be anyone, well, it is kind of extra hot and slutty in a way that she is asking "anyone" or us that. And if it is specifically directed towards the people actually listening, little monsters and fans and the curious, etc, then it is something in between asking her one true love and the whole world. And from the mystical perspective it is the Love Heart of reality asking us, either all of us or the special ones who love her, if we want to see her naked, if we want to be even closer to her or in touch with her, or even make love with her. Do you wanna peek underneath the cover This is another amazing line, echoing and reinforcing the whole veil image but also making it both more sexual and more mystical. The cover implies the veil over ultimate reality, the covering, like a blanket, or curtain - it's just another common motif for talking about that, probably because of how it can be pulled aside, pulled off, uncovered, but how it lays comfortably still. Also that it protects against "wind" or communication - it's hard to describe in words, the reason for poetry and song. But mostly that it protects whats inside, underneath, keeps it warm and safe. So peeking under the cover implies joining that absolute safety, or at least getting a glimpse of it. Sexually it implies seeing her naked, again, but also seeing her in bed, being invited into her bed, and it just intensifies the eroticism and intimacy of it, whether you are hearing it as her personal, only lover, or one of millions of her lovers. Do you wanna see the girl who lives behind the Aura? behind the Aura? This line both brings it all together, full circle, and takes it to a new level. First, it's all about "the girl". I can't separate feminism from anything, it is the central thing we need to accept to save the world, along with environmentalism, social justice (human and animal rights), pacifism and non-economy. It's all part of the same thing, the Glory of the Goddess, but nothing really happens if we don't restore utmost respect to girls and the feminine. That's why, as terrible as the kidnapping of hundreds of girls is, if it leads to awareness of how constant this problem is, and other problems connected to it, we can fix this world - just as the awareness and new solutions coming out of the Ukraine situation could get us all off of the evil of the influence of oil companies. The Girl, the real person who is represented by "Lady Gaga", or in the case of anyone singing this song, the real person beneath whoever their persona or image is, is asking if you want to make love, to see her naked. Because that is not part of the image, that is our most personal experience, who we have sex with and the sex we have. But it is just like if you see a beautiful sunset, or watch a great movie, or eat a delicious meal - you would rather share it with someone, those moments that lift our souls. Even reading a book that touches us, we might not want someone reading over our shoulder, but we want to share it with someone who read it before or reads it after us. Regardless of all the trappings, of all the Aura, the realest and best things are our experiences, the inner things, beneath the coverings. This is where all of us truly live, behind the aura. The irony is we use the aura to get each other's attention, then want to get through it with that person who can love us for who we truly are. Gaga has the most fabulous aura and image on the planet, and yet she is saying that even all that grandiosity is not "her", the real her is behind all that. As an example to us, we can see how if even Gaga who has the greatest aura has to make this powerful song to get us beneath it, we, whose auras might seem pale, are still stuck behind them and keep people at bay with them. If our Auras seem like flimsy things compared to Gaga's, they should be super-easy to break through, right, to lift those veils? I know that is not entirely so, I'm being sarcastic, but the other option is to see the relative grandiosity of Gaga's image, hearing her call it an Aura, and knowing you also have an aura, and maybe if you just bedazzle it then it will have the same glorious effect as Gaga's. If we aren't going to just break through and be real with each other, or in the meantime, let's at least make these images and games as fabulous as possible, filled with glitter and hope and sparkliness. And we can all lift the veils and be closer to each other at different times in different ways, and all together, the more the merrier, on this universal love. And from the mystical perspective this line just reminds us that when we lift the veil of reality, the divinity we discover beneath it is a girl. Do you wanna touch me cosmic lover? I just love the experience I had the first time i heard this song, and still have every time I hear it. Each line is so powerful, I'm like "damn, girl, you can't say anything more badass than that!" then the next line she does it - and this happens again and again in this chorus. At this point, it gets meta-mega epic, and the percussion and bass kick in - and it goes all cosmic. This is intense. The music takes it to the next level, you can feel it, just as she takes it to a whole new level, too. She asks if you want to touch her, implying greater or even total intimacy. It gets really hot, and at the same time gets really spacey as she qualifies what kind of lover she's addressing: a cosmic lover. Again, this could be her true love, a love written in the stars. Or it could be the mystery lover, even the lover she has never met, who is cosmically destined to meet her (me? Please?) That sneaky part of my brain that wants Aura to be a lovesong to me, personally, mystically, whether or not she knows I exist, wants to be named "Cosmic Lover", at this point. But I'm sure it has that effect on everyone: everyone could be her cosmic lover. This is why we need an artist like Gaga to show us the future, this is why call her the Goddess, a liberator deity, why I sang my song "Savior Mom (Lady Gaga)" www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxAgloeSF64 for her - she is awesome enough, a wide enough channel of divine inspiration, that she can make this love/sex song that is so perfect for the human physical and spiritual condition but also reflects the mystery of the Goddess playing coy with humanity, and challenging us to live up to our potential and overcome our flaws to be worthy of her. Do you wanna peek underneath the cover? This is not just a repeat of the line before because the lines between change the meaning some: first, maybe cosmic lover is just more description for the same lover, or maybe these lines could apply to different people or ways of looking at someone. But it is the cosmic lover who is invited to touch, again deepening this idea that our spirits experience things together, and while our bodies may yearn for each other the real experience of sex is not physical but a magical, spiritual union. As physically attractive as we are to each other, our spirits are even more eager to be united with each other, in so many ways, but we don't focus on it like that, usually. But to touch the ultimate reality, the Goddess of Love, gives us a spiritual, trippy experience, it brings out the spirit in us and makes us more vibrant. Also, the idea of being "cosmic" already kind of implies being everywhere or omnipresent, so asking the cosmic lover if he or she wants a peek under the cover kind of implies Gaga, or any "the girl" or "the lover-to-be", has a power even greater than the cosmos, the power to lift the veil. Do you wanna see the girl who lives behind the aura, behind the aura, behind the aura, behind the aura-------? This again repeats the first time in the chorus, but carrying it out to an echo and then like a machine sound is like ripping off the matrix, or going to another side of the veil. The first half of the chorus is more intimate, personal, because there is light, harpsichordy music and some gentle squiggles and the vocal sounds heavenly. Then when the music kicks in for the second half of the chorus it sounds that much more powerful in contrast with the quietness accompanying many of the same words a moment before. When she first repeats the word "aura" at the end of the intro verse, it is just the music that does a sort of alarm-sounding sequence to rip that layer away, when it terminates in the beginning of the first verse. But at the end of the chorus, a snare rush sneaks up behind the vocal, gaining volume even as the vocal "Aura"-echo is becoming more punctuated, until they merge into that same kind of perforation to rip the aura/veil away in preparation to go even deeper, or to another side of the veil, in the second verse. Enigma popstar is fun she wear burqa for fashion This verse starts a whole different tone, like another perspective or side of the veil. But it also just goes deeper into some of the themes already introduced. Who is the enigma popstar, who is "she"?. In a way I suspect Gaga is talking about herself, as the "enigma" popstar versus the other, regular ones, or referring to herself in the third person as the Enigma Popstar she portrays, though this is how that is really her Aura, really her, a natural part of her - just, there is an inner core girl beneath it all. Even the fact that she is adopting the veil/burqa motif as an outsider - though i feel certain Gaga put a lot of thought into it, or felt the divine inspiration of the words to know the poetry and magic of them would carry through any possible conflict or misunderstanding about them. I suspect this is the truth, and what she means by a "move of passion" in the following line. I suspect she is criticizing herself, but then again she might not be. She might know that while she has been criticised by others for appropriating cultural fashions, she has done so in more respectful ways than other/actual "pop" stars who have been criticized for the same thing, but did much worse. I'm thinking about Katy Perry as a Geisha or Katy Perry as a Witch, burning herself, or even Ke$ha as an "Indian" in Timber, unless I'm getting some confused or I just nightmared that. Or Madonna burning crosses - the ASL sign for Pepsi is a cross on the forehead, which I assume is a remembrance of that video/commercial. But my impression, while only partially "getting it", is that the first verse is about how the burqa is perceived by outsiders to the cultures who wear the burqa, and how the person behind the burqa, from that culture, might really feel - their perspective, even though Gaga is just adopting or assuming it to make an artistic point. The second verse, however, is about an outsider using the same device, the burqa, adopting it. This is a whole different perspective, again, another side of a veil, and it still applies on different levels. If the Goddess of Love is an Enigma Popstar, she isn't even serious about hiding from us, it is just a mood or fad, a game. Even as I type this I think of a more Indian, longer idea of time. There is all this tension in tens of thousands of years of oppressing the feminine, symbolized and realized by real tension between men and women, etc, that makes the veil a powerful symbol, etc. But from a broader perspective, knowing we are in a brief flaw, a skip in time, where we aren't respecting the feminine, but will soon return to eons of balance, we will look back on this as silliness, and to the Goddess with that perspective the veil is just something to play with. Gaga is saying it is "just fashion" but also that, even without knowing all the history, struggle, and conflict over the burqa, when the popstar puts it on she brings all of that up to the world, an magically for herself, for everyone. In the most basic sense, it's incredibly ironic how everyone is so upset we are being spied on, weren't upset a dozen years ago when they said they were gonna do it, is obsessed with celebrity in general and generally guilty of celeb-hating like on the Kardashians as if there is anything wrong with celebrity for its own sake when we all obviously dig it, pretend we care about our privacy and advertise all sorts of stuff about ourselves on social media, like we are pretending we are our own little versions of celebrities. The truth is we shouldn't just tease this stuff, we should get out and do what only we can do. I'm the worst offender, I'm wrapping up this rambling-writing soon, unless people respond- anyone can write this. But I gotta write songs and stories that only I can write. Thanks for reading though, if anyone got this far! I just use words for fashion, sorry I don't have the respect for the long history of struggle it took to make words available to everyone...oh, that;s right, they aren't yet. Let's get on that! Maybe wear something with a literacy logo? Or a campaign to connect everyone for free, etc. Free food and water, too. And no guns. Its not a statement as much as just a move of passion As I said above, it's not intended as a statement, but it kind of becomes one, it brings it up. There is a lot of real life, serious bullshit stuff going on in the world around burqas, cultural oppression and people protesting, gender oppression I guess and people in some countries being forced to wear them when they would rather not. There is a lot of serious shit. But when you google it, Burqa, the third result after burqa and burqa ban is burqa lady gaga. It might have just been a whim, but she got that far into the heart of the conversation. To me this is magic, an example of how this "media" magic, or Oz magic, Gagamagic, works. Simply, it is knowing everything is magic, anything can be used for magic, and using it with good and the best intentions will make good and the best things happen. It's kind of crazy, but try it, it works. Magic does not have to be complicated, at all, and is more powerful the simpler it is, with the right attitude. All that complication is like math, science, medicine, or any other study, just to scare you away and stifle the creativity of all but the most brilliant - an unfortunate clique mentality. Also "passion" implies ecstasy, either sexual,divine, or both. A move of passion sounds like the whim that comes with an ecstatic experience, you are just inspired to wear a burqa, or whatever it is. But whether Gaga researched this stuff and considered it all carefully, belabored the lyrics like I am (sorry!), or just let them come to her and was completely amazing as she has a knack for doing, it all comes down to an inspiration, a magical force on the world. I'm sure there is so much more to it, I expect to be enlightened when I resolve some things I'm missing and hear things that Gaga and others have to say about it. I think this is the last time I can just wear a veil, or more like a blindfold, and just put off seeking out all this information. I might try to record more lyrics the way I hear them, for fun, but ASAP, and then read the real lyrics, catch up on all the videos and commentary. It won't be long before I will see Gaga at the Ball for the first time, the first time I've seen her outside of a dream or a screen, and I just need to stop being such an idiot. Also, I wouldn't mind attracting some knowing people and being able to converse with them. I may not walk on your street or shoot a gun on your soil This seems to be Gaga talking to the people of the Middle East, as much as I hate to say that because the line "shoot a gun on your soil" so clearly indicates, to me, American military in Iraq, etc. But of course it could imply any occupying or foreign military force, it certainly seems to imply a hostile aggressor. But she also says she may not walk their streets. On the one hand it implies she might walk on the streets, probably has not or even won't, but certainly won't be shooting a gun there. The meaning of the whole thing to me is admitting that she does not have the personal experience, or even the experience of visiting, countries where people regularly wear burqas, but such a person might be or become sypathetic to their perspective. A soldier might become sympathetic by living around the populace, too, but a soldier represents another order being imposed. So I think she is saying "I may be American, I may have only secondary exposure to this, but I'm not trying to impose my ideas on you, but more make a connection and see if I can help." The next verse seems to prove this. I hear you screaming is it because of pleasure or toil? I'm still hearing this in the context of the outsider, who hasn't even visited, but who hears the cries of the people. Why are they crying? She hears crying, is it cries of pleasure or pain? Behind the closed doors, the roles people play, especially sexually, which they have every right to keep secret in some respects, well there is also a lot of abuse that goes on in private, and a lot of people intimidated out of admitting it or seeking help. So people can say they feel more respected under a veil, but if a veil hides bruises, etc, can we always believe them? It is when they cry out, when we can hear them outside the private world - is that from pleasure? If so, good for you. But if it is from pain, we want to know, the public wants to step in and do something to help people who can't help themselves. Again, so much of this is focused on the "burqa/veil" connection and all these cultural implications. I haven's said anything about if the Aura/veil is something else entirely, like more specifically the Ego or a funeral or bridal veil or who knows. The song certainly does not necessarily have anything to do with cultures where people where burqas - that is to say, I might be making a really big deal about something that is really a small part of the meaning. Certainly there is enough meaning to the song that much of this I'm talking about here is not necessary to feeling and getting the meaning of it. But even without any cross-cultural implications, hearing anyone scream, on any street, is a cause for concern. We want all screams to be for fun,and anything that causes a bad scream we want to stop. I've always heard this line with this kind of mental image, hearing a scream, like in the street, coming from a house or alley. But I see that like a dream, like a metaphor for hearing screams of a country, of being a deity floating over a country, war-torn, and hearing the screams. Asking, wishing, they were screams of pleasure - but, at least to my current mind, knowing the odds are, pain. Think about that, for a second, though. There have been lands, cities, countries, where wailing and lamenting went up to the air from every voice. If the same symphony of cries played, but all the voices were of pleasure, across a nation or community - wouldn't that have to catch on and be the wave of the future? Isn't that the future, when this line will make people think "well, of course, pleasure! But how awful that would be to hear screams of hard work and pain!" Oh, let me not forget that: It's not exactly "pain", it's "toil" - I interpret that as pain as the opposite of pleasure, but literally it is like "work". Work is what you do, not for pleasure. The work we are lucky enough to love, we would and do for free, we do for pleasure and to please one another. This is Oz-style. No money, all work is for pleasure. This is what I believe in as the future - no toil, no money, no greed because there is no way or reason to hoard vast resources. One other way i thought to interpret this is not so impersonal, but addressed to the one you are having sex with. How all our sex faces can be pretty bad, I hear you screaming is that because it is really good or you are really working hard to get off? That kind of question. Which is kind of too blunt to be "it", in a way, but then again, not a bad way to look at it, especially when reflected mystically. As the Goddess Mystery Lover beckoning us on, if we struggle and cry out in life, because it is so damn hard, but the real secret is to re-unite with the hidden goddess, love, then all of our cries are the same, cries of discovery at getting closer, cries of pain at feeling pushed away or hurt - but all things teach us how to do it better. So when the Goddess hears our cries, and says "is that pleasure or pain?", it is not like she does not care or there is not difference, just they sound the same, and we can have or develop a perspective where more of our cries come from pleasure. Knowing we are always getting closer, even in the times when it hurts, but especially as we learn from those, avoid them and fix them and help others avoid them, we can feel the pleasure in all of it, and nothing will be toil, work. All experience, even our jobs, will be filled with pleasure as we improve them and improve ourselves doing them. The Goddess cares and knows that asking us like this is like saying "are you focused on pleasure and comfort, for yourself and others? Or are you focused on 'working' for some 'other' reason, when there really is nothing else but care for each other?" Because the difference is perspective and focus, and focusing on helping others, or even helping yourself to help others better, focusing on pleasure instead of toiling for, like, a car (that cool old man huntin' a Quattro, the new version, of the commercial, and a memory of that hippie telling Principal Skinner "sounds like you're working for your car, man" just came on as I typed that, ha ha) is what makes the magical transformation so that more and more of our cries become of pleasure. Dance sex art pop dance sex art pop This is like a mantra, like the world going on even though we have reached the beneath the veil infinite space-time with Gaga. This is the world going on like it always does, this is like the sound of the aura itself, of all the auras together in a big beautiful mesh. It reminds me of how Papus explained the Tarot in his "Tarot of the Bohemians", like a spell of the rotating letters "r" "o" "t" "a". But it also reminds me of a ray of creation. Dance is like the dance of the divine, sex is like our imitation of that, one level below, then art is a level below that, art might be what we want to do when we have had enough great sex and want to express that bliss, or when we want more sex and want to do something awesome to attract people, but an imitation or spell to attract sex. And pop is a level below that, when people try to imitate art or use it for lesser purposes. Then again it is like a upward development,as well. Dance is like a natural, open, physical response, shared publicly, etc. Sex is a dimension above that, more intimate, with more love and magical power, art is like a distillation of that love and magic into a form that can be shared publicly and pop is how that art, brought from the future or the divine through the artist, improves us all, gradually, and lifts the whole mentality of culture, progresses us towards that idea future of liberation, safety, and comfort. INTERLUDE 2: It's now a couple of days later, I've been meeting more people via facebook and certainly some of them are making me certain that the veil is, currently, lifting. Thanks, everyone. Do you wanna see me naked lover? Once again, this is not just a repeat of the meaning the first time she says it, there are some different implications from the second verse. As I thought of this in my head I realized the first verse is not that different than the second, it is not really, necessarily, two sides. I do think there is sympathy for women who "really" wear burqa throughout it, in different ways. But the second verse has all the popstar and fashion references, which makes it easier to consider as Gaga's, or an enigma popstar's, relationship to her fans and the expression of sexuality enticing us and connecting with us. Media magic, again, as I write this and on TV is "The Solid Gold Cadillac" had a scene playing where advertising execs are like, discovering using sexy girls in ads, pioneering that. "Why don't we show a steam shovel?" "No one wants to look at a steamshovel!" Gaga is so personal with her fans, meeting with them and tweeting about them and sending them pizza, I think, when they wait for her, and so many of the pictures you see with her lucky little monsters who get to meet her are so affectionate and hot. It's not all about sexuality, it's about intimacy and communication and love and acceptance, but expressing that sexuality is healthy is a way to bring all this together into a hug or kiss, a song and other art, magic or any form of making love. Do you wanna peek underneath the cover? Again, the popstar context makes me think of pictures of little monsters backstage in bed with Gaga, literally "want to peek under the covers?". As much as I enjoy the idea of actually being in bed with Gaga, I must comment on a metaphorical meaning directed at the audience who are not monsters, yet anyway. The criticism from people who don't really know Gaga, just know of her, and this is why I wouldn't even want to bring it up, but their criticism is that she is all for show. So the idea of looking under the covers, the coverings and trappings of fame and media, is that there is More beneath all of that - there's always more beneath. It's a lot deeper than people who fear diving want to consider or imagine. Do you wanna see the girl who loves behind the aura, behind the aura? I guess not much to add here except the arc of the movie playing in the background just now, "The Solid Gold Cadillac", where the heroine discovers she was just hired to keep her quiet, then quits, then returns to play tough, takes shit over and is running things. Do you wanna touch me cosmic lover? I'll just say I look forward to redoing this after getting more information, and also relating it to other messages in Gaga songs, such as "Venus". But along the lines that this is directed at little monsters, this line is saying we are all cosmic lovers, or Her cosmic lovers, who could be her lovers, each others, or just love her and each other and all the art we all make. Do you wanna peek underneath the cover? To me, as an artist, Gaga is the Essence of Inspiration - not like she is my personal muse as much as she is like the Goddess of Muses. Her art shows me under the cover of reality, it shows me the divine, encouragiung me, beckoning me, to make my own art and touch her in my own way. As a witch she does the same thing for me, magically. All my magical beliefs have come to fruition in my own life, but the whole gardening of it versus hoping it crops up wildly is thanks to Gaga showing what I think are the same magical principles on a grand scale, accessible to everyone and apparent to all who look. George Burns is the narrator of this movie and I love his voice, he just said "Prince Charming." Do you wanna see the girl who lives behind the Aura, behind the aura, behind the curtain, behind the burqa - - - - - This is the punchline, the big reveal, when she gathers it all back in together, like cinching a magic bag. "Sure, you're scared of girls" the heroine just said, wow, I love this. "I didn't pan to use one sinle solitary wile on you!" Wow, I gotta watch this for real sometime. "You're here to give me a haircut!" he said, I don't even know what that means, now she kissed him "There, I tampered with your ethics, okay?" -I'm sorry, this is too good, watch it, I shouldn't be spoiling it. But yeah, the big reveal is that you can see the girl behind the aura, and adding the other layers of meaning and reference, the other kinds of veils, the curtain, the burqa, just makes that multi-facted jewel of awareness. The Curtain is one of my favorite references, just a magical delight for me to hear - because of the prase "pay no attention to the man behind that curtain!" from the Wizard of Oz movie (and book? now I'm ashamed I don't know for sure) and used very commonly in reference to any unveiling. But it is not just clever, it is prohetic. For three years now I have been composing in my head and occasionally writing my book about Gaga fulfilling the century-old prophecy of Oz, and it is a whole book so I won't rewrite it here, but this reference is Gaga as The Wizard, and she has already said we can all be all of these characters, and our own, and shows being Dorothy, Glinda, and the Wizard, at least, in her "Gaga of Oz" performance, but teh real secret is the one she "really" is, but the character is unknown to people who haven't read the books. I can't wait to write mine and "reveal" it,and he effect that will have on the world - maybe no more Gagablogs unless someone wants them! seriously this time, I'm ready to do this for real, no more no more veils, just making my Aura go all borealis, Gaga-style. I've gotta get to light speed to catch up with her, before August when she returns to Denver, the Emerging Emerald City of Oz. Artpop Apex alarm clock on screen. So this is the announcement of what this is all about. Just as the intro is like a veil that is peeled away to get to the heart of it, the song Aura, the song itself is like a veil that is removed to initiate us into the greater reality and truth of the rest of the album. Now that we've moved beyond the veil, it is time for Artpop. This is like a spell on the album, we experience this transition by listening to it, and maybe this is one reason I think I heard Gaga say the Artrave was intended to be the whole album played in order. But the effect of the spell o the whole world is to remove the aura, remove the barrier, and move us beyond this superficial era and into the era of Artpop. What that means will be explored in the rest of the songs, and what is discovered there might reveal more about Aura. But it's already so rich and inspiring, I'm going to live up to my nature and be an artist and star, it's already working on me. Thanks for reading, please share if you like, and let me know what you think, okay? Paws up!