This is a track from Lady Gaga's EP,
The Fame Monster. In this song Gaga fends off three Mexican lovers. Latin lovers often crop on records - other tracks featuring them include Madonna's "
La Isla Bonita" and ABBA's "
Fernando."
The video courts religious controversy in a Madonna-ish way by showing Gaga dressed in a red latex nun outfit eating a rosary. It also intermingles other Catholic imagery with provocative shots of a same-sex orgy. Not only Catholic groups objected - Katy Perry tweeted: "Using blasphemy as entertainment is as cheap as a comedian telling a fart joke."
Klein defended the use of religious imagery and symbolism in an email to MTV News: "The religious symbolism is not meant to denote anything negative, but represents the character's battle between the dark forces of this world and the spiritual salvation of the Soul," he wrote. "Thus at the end of the film, she chooses to be a nun, and the reason her mouth and eyes disappear is because she is withdrawing her senses from the world of evil and going inward towards prayer and contemplation."
He added that the scene in which Gaga eats the rosary beads is meant to represent "the desire to take in the holy."
Every track on The Fame Monster represents a "fear" of some "monster." GaGa has said this song was influenced by her "fear of sex" monster.
The song's music video was directed by the photographer Steven Klein. Gaga discussed with The London Times May 22, 2010 it's concept. She explained it is about the "purity of my friendships with my gay friends, and how I've been unable to find that with a straight man in my life. It's a celebration and an admiration of gay love - it confesses my envy of the courage and bravery they require to be together. In the video I'm pining for the love of my gay friends - but they just don't want me."
The song opens with a weeping violin, which incorporates the melody from "Csárdás" by Italian composer Vittorio Monti (1868-1922). "Csárdás" was composed in 1904 and Monti based the violin show-piece on a Hungarian folk dance.
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Gaga has cited in interviews Abba's 1976 song "Fernando" as an influence on this tune.
Director Steven Klein said of his collaboration with Gaga on the music video to Rolling Stone: "She likes epics. It fits her personality. We combined dance, narrative and attributes of surrealism. The process was to express Lady Gaga's desire to reveal her heart and bear her soul."
Klein had never directed a proper music video before. However, after seeing Gaga perform live, he felt inspired. "I went to see her show in NYC, and it felt like performance art in the '90s. And I had not seen anything like that in a while," Klein told MTV News. "Lady Gaga approached me about doing this particular song, and in the past, I have passed on such offers, but this time I felt [a] narrative drive you could make interesting, and we both aligned on the vision for the film."
He added: "I had a vision and story for the film, she reacted to it, then we both collaborated ... We shot in Los Angeles on April 30, 2010. My schedule and hers are both complicated, so it took a lot to get the days that we both could work together."
Klein went on to explain the clip: "I was not thinking in terms [of influences.] I saw it more as a combination of cinema and theater," he said. "[It is] about a woman's desire to resurrect a dead love and who can not face the brutality of her present situation. The pain of living without your true love."