The single from Lady Gaga’s next album with the ambiguous title “911” found its video sequence in September 2020. The premiere turned out to be spectacular and excited the audience not only in the USA. For a number of reasons, the Armenian people reacted the most to the video.

Lady Gaga and the track “911”: the meaning and decoding of the song

The track itself was released simultaneously with the Chromatica album in May 2020. According to the translation of the text, the performer asks for help and is afraid to see her own tears again. A little later, Lady Gaga personally on her Instagram gave an exact transcript of the meaning of the song.

All her life, the artist has been tormented by a psychological problem – as if there is a second “I” in her, which squeezes the true state of the girl out. This phenomenon often happens to creative people – someone drowns out with drugs and alcohol, and the American singer is forced to take special drugs. The song is dedicated to the constant struggle, to stopping the beginning destructive processes in the brain and mental health.

The name “911” carries the secret meaning of the name of the drug itself – olanzapine. With the well-known combination of numbers, Gaga veiled the very pill, without which she can go crazy. The lines in the track, on the contrary, directly tell the story – “this is a biological state” and “the mood turns into a manic state.” The performer boldly presented a deep and purely personal analysis of her suffering to the audience.

Analysis of the meaning of the clip “911” by Lady Gaga

In the summer of the same year, the singer met via video link with director Tarsen Singh, an American with Indian roots. In creative circles, he was already known for his works “Cage” and “Outland”. He had been nurturing the idea of ​​the plot for 28 years and even tried it on the composition “Angel” for the musical group “Massive Attack”. But the group did not have time to negotiate. Then Singh just took a position of waiting and after a long time the right song found him.

When discussing the concept, the director voiced his sacred thoughts to the singer, which were based on the legendary 1968 movie The Color of Pomegranate. The creator of the film was Sergei Parajanov – he is also considered the legislator of “poetic cinema”. The film about a poet who owns himself, to this day receives rave reviews from film critics. A mid-20th century arthouse with a contemporary IMDb rating of 7.7 combines spiritual poetry with metaphorical plot shots.

According to the script in the video, Lady Gaga performs in the image of the heroine Sofiko Chiaureli, a Georgian actress. The video sequence is really similar to “The Color of the Pomegranate” – the scenes with the pomegranates themselves on the sand, the interpretation of the icon of the goddess Stephanie, the rituals of purification and rebirth are completely repeated. On the net, fans of the genre and connoisseurs of religious works post a detailed analysis and analysis of fresh creations from Gaga and Singh.

The essence of the video clip lies in the clinical death of the heroine and her wanderings in dreams, in search of a way out, in the passage of abstract barriers. The frame with the elevation, followed by the actor in black lowering the performer by the rope to the ground, carries a terrible and secret meaning – it is easier for the heroine to die than to experience suffering. According to some critics, the key is the heartbreaking cry at the end of the “911” video, which means liberation from eternal depression and awakening.

Lady Gaga and Armenia: the connection of the song “911” with the events of 2020

The stormy reaction observed on the net when the Lady Gaga mini-movie was released was caused not only by the connection with the Soviet art house of the 60s. By a fatal accident, exactly 9 days after the release of the video, a smoldering enmity between Armenia and Azerbaijan broke out for decades. Records began to appear in the media that the video itself was filmed about Armenia and on its territory, and Lady Gaga’s song became a prophecy of the resumption of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. In fact, the shooting took place in the west of America – the state of California, 25 km from the city of Glendale.

Viewers from Armenia are asking for an explanation of the clip due to the presence in the video of several references to their country – the inscription in Armenian “Beware” on the signal tape, as well as a sign from the Armenian film festival and posters of films, including “The Color of Pomegranate”. In addition, in the translation of the chorus of the track, it is sung about the enemy and calling for help. Spectators frightened by such coincidences and symbolism involuntarily found a decoding of the non-existent messages of the authors and actors of the “911” video clip.

Only a careful and attentive analysis of the text makes it clear that the singer has nothing to do with the foresight of the war in Armenia and sings exclusively about a personal tragedy. The visible connection between the history of the medieval Armenian poet and the song of Lady Gaga with the events of autumn 2020 has no significant grounds. From the director’s interview and the artist’s own publications, it follows that the short film for the track “911” is the embodiment of Singh’s long-standing creative dream and conveys an artistic interpretation of the song.

Photo source – clip 911: