Songfacts®:

• On her Facebook page, Lady Gaga posted: "I wrote 'Marry the Night' about having a good time in NY with my friends, and how I would never be a Hollywood girl."
  
  Gaga gave more detail on her 2011 Thanksgiving special, when she told Katie Couric that it was her favorite song on the album, adding, "It's about committing yourself wholeheartedly to the thing you're most passionate about. For me, it was always music. It's about that moment when I decided I was going to tear it up, that I was going to get married to my work, and that my work would be my husband forever. There was no fire and no rain that could get in the way."
• The opening track of Lady Gaga's second full-length album, Born This Way was written and produced by the New York songstress with Mexican music producer, DJ and songwriter Fernando Garibay. She told Billboard magazine that this song set the record's sound: "When Fernando and I did it, it was actually after I had written 'Born This Way,' but hadn't yet produced it. It was like this sonic light bulb went off and we were like, 'That's the sound! That's the future.'"
• Gaga explained to UK music magazine the NME that this declaration of her love for the Big Apple's night life, "is about me going back to New York. I wrote this about the courage it took for me to say, 'I hate Hollywood, I just wanna live in Brooklyn and make music.'"
• Gaga first heard the church-bell-filled sounds that Garibay had concocted for this tune while on the road for the Monster Ball Tour. She recalled in the MTV documentary Inside the Outside: "He goes, 'Your show is a religion and your fans are a cult. It's this epic music. It's just so big.'. And I started to cry. He said, 'What's wrong?' And I said, 'I can't believe that you hear me so big.' " Gaga sat down, and lyrics immediately started pouring out: "I'm gonna marry the night/ I won't give up on my life," she wrote.
• Garibay has been working with Gaga for several years and the first fruits of their labours was the Fame Monster track "Dance In The Dark." The Mexican producer told MTV News how this track was conceived. "I just kind of got on the American leg of the tour — this was after Australia — and she goes, 'I want to write another song that can define where I'm at with this album and my life,'" he said.
  Garibay listened again to "Dance in the Dark," and tried to top that energy. "I remember being backstage and hearing the concert start, so I go out there and hear 'Dance in the Dark' open up the whole concert, and I wanted to outdo that feeling. I wanted to outdo that moment that opens up the show. I'm just that way," he recalled.
  Garibay added: "I go back to the studio bus; I'm just like working on parts, working on parts, and then, two hours later, she comes offstage, and she goes, 'Do you have something to play me?' And I go, 'I do, actually. It's a little different, but I think you'll like it.'
  So I played her the instrumental for 'Marry the Night,' and she goes, 'I love it, but can you change this?' So she starts changing around a few chords, and then she goes, 'Open up a mic.' ... She starts laying down the whole song, like, off the cuff. She didn't have time to live with it. She kind of meditated a few minutes, and then it's like, 'OK, I'm ready. Let's go.' And right offstage, using the energy of that crowd and going into the studio, it was amazing. I can't compare it to anything."
• Gaga started her performance of this song on the UK edition of X Factor broadcast on November 13, 2011, by emerging from a confessional dressed as a decapitated corpse, carrying her own head. She later explained to chat show host Alan Carr that the show's producers gave her free rein to do whatever she wanted with her presentation. "'Marry the Night' is about marrying your obstacles and the challenges that you face to become great or to live your dreams," said Gaga, "so I thought it would be a funny metaphor to sing on X Factor with my head cut off. The show must go on."
• The song's music video was filmed in October 2011 and marked the first time Gaga has directed a video solo. It was shot in various locations in New York City including Sailors' Snug Harbor, on the north shore of Staten Island. The deeply personal visual is close to a mini-movie running to nearly 14 minutes long. Gaga told Alan Carr on his Chatty Man UK show it's about one of the worst days of her life before she was famous. She explained: "I know how rejection feels in the business. I got signed, I got dropped, I got signed again. That's actually what the 'Marry the Night' video is about. It's about one of the most horrible days of my life when I got dropped from my first record label and it's the story of what happened that day."
• The single stalled at #29 on the Hot 100, halting Gaga's career-opening streak of 11 successive top 10 hits. Her run did equal the record for new artists, matching Mariah Carey's achievement of her first 11 singles all reaching the upper tier.
• Do you recognize the actress in the music video who plays Gaga's friend who helps her after she's been released from a mental institution? That's actress/singer Jenna Ushkowitz, best known for her role as Tina Cohen-Chang on Glee.
• Adam Lambert performed a cover for Glee's fifth season episode "A Katy or a Gaga" as his character Elliot "Starchild" Gilbert. The American Idol season eight runner-up's version can also be found on his The Very Best of Adam Lambert greatest hits collection.