We’re about to get to know a lot more about Lady Gaga when her Five Foot Two documentary hits Netflix on September 22nd, or at least more about one year of her life on tour. Ahead of that, though, the singer shared what the inspiration behind her 2016 album Joanne was, and she did so in vivid detail.
In the upcoming issue of V Magazine, she said that she wrote the album, which is actually named after her late aunt Joanne Stefani Germanotta, for a girl she sees in a dream, a girl that happens to be herself:
“I keep seeing this girl. It’s in a dream. In the dream I’m playing at an amphitheater, outdoors, and beyond the seats, there’s a field in back — it’s the cheap tickets. That’s where the girl is sitting, dressed in a Hanes sweatshirt, wearing her mom’s rolled-up jeans. She has three babies, two are running around her. There’s a cigarette in her hand, a glass of Pinot Grigio. She’s got on a lot of jewelry, mostly fake, but she also has on one heirloom piece.
“This girl is singing every word and she thinks, ‘How is it possible that Lady Gaga understands how I feel?’ That girl — it’s me. She’s the one I’m writing to. With Joanne, I wanted to reach people, I wanted to bring all parts of the country together through this record.”
She also said that in the days following The Fame Monster, she wants her music to be more about real human connections: “And for me, that’s what writing this album was all about. Because after The Fame Monster and subsequent albums, I felt that there was a part of me that was connecting on a human level with the public and part of me that was connecting on a whole new level, one that I had been wanting to connect with them on, a sort of fantastic magical level. And now, I want more of that connection.”
Learn more about the upcoming Five Foot Two documentary here.
