Gaga claims her nuptials to empyrean technobeats and pronunciation exercises, a reason she cites Marry will discover the most commercial success. But syllabic reminders of puh-puh-puh-pokerface only serve as an outdated trademark of the infamous Gaga hook. Born This Way, instead, pays homage to belching organs and Jesus in technocolor, and the lead track follows suit.
Sledgehammer church bells amidst dragging a capella vocals, but the sluggish serenade ends with industrial percussion- Gaga declares, “I command you to dance.” Drawn-out rhymes are replaced with 80′s howl- I’m gonna marry- though the twinkles and stars remain put; the emblematic church bells mindlessly churn out peals throughout the song. Fernando Garibay’s production shines in this dark record: the texture of the synths challenges modern dance music to follow suit and shows cheap pauses and bassline kicks can only imitate so much. Hard-edged techno seamlessly transitions to a bridge more noteworthy than the chorus itself, charged by Gaga-fied lyrics.
Perhaps that’s the strength of the song, or, rather, all of her songs: music with a meaning. Marry the Night is the foray into the recesses of New York and all its individualized and genuine culture, not the plastic pop performance offered by Hollywood. Gaga calls it her escape from the California scene- she’s back to self-dismissal and whiskey (if Gaga ever loses steam, she can double as a AA spokesperson) and the stark grit found on New York Streets. “New York is not just a tan that you never lose.” It’s Ginger, nickname of that all-American Camino her old boyfriend Luc Carl owned, or the cultural reconsiderations she poses with “love is the new denim or black.” Marry the Night hitches you on the vehicle that takes you down “Highway Unicorn (Road to Love), from picking up “Judas” to curbing on some obscure “Electric Chapel.”
This also journey bears many drawbacks Gaga encounters with her other music, where otherwise lyrically-mundane-but-melodically-addictive sounds require additive explanations to appreciate just how well she oils her songs. At its six cylinder core, Marry the Night hits the same speed bumps- the overly traveled utterances of titular titles- as her other commercial hits, but lines like “Get your engine ready cause I’m coming out front, won’t poke holes in the seats with my heals cause that’s where we make love” cleverly change her creative direction. You’ll need to watch a few HBO interviews or MTV spotlights to realize her allusions, such as her fascination with muscle cars that stems from “Boys Boys Boys” to the Monster Ball’s “Glitter and Grease”, but chances are if you’re a Little Monster, you probably have. For her, Born This Way is a realization of herself: her acceptance as the Magna Carta for all pop artists and the “warrior queen” for her underlings.
Marry the Night’s bethrothal to New York nightlife mirrors the devotion her fans ultimately wed to her. This is where each feels most comfortable, in the fishnet-clad streets of NY or the microcosm of self-validation Gaga has built for her fans. It’s a bit of a jump to say Gaga accepts the hand of her followers, but she shares in their doubts, as a “soldier to my own emptiness, a “winner”, a “sinner”, and a “loser” and during the ventures into the unknown that we all face knowing you can join Gaga at the Electric Bar where “[we] won’t cry anymore” is enough to reach the hearts (and wallets) of anyone feeling a drop of self-doubt- including herself. Calling her lifestyle a “border between fantasy and reality”, the only solid definition of Lady Gaga comes from those thousands shouting her name at weekly concert stops.
But it’s her integrity, where in every interview she places her fans on pedestals, and it’s those actions like supporting the Human Rights Campaign and youth homeless shelters that show Gaga’s equally tied to them. This is why Fernando Garibay could only think of church bells for the song, to channel the religious devotion Gaga and her fans have for one another. It’s the reason the album’s tenor revs with a darker engine than The Fame Monster ever could. The polymultiplicty of Gaga’s marriages has given her enough power to be Time’s most influential artist, to explore the sounds of shadowed streets and stars, to really do anything she damn wants to.
