For her role as Harley Quinn in Joker: Folie à Deux, Lady Gaga released a companion album of jazz standards. Now, just a month later, she’s returned to her pop star roots with the new single and video, “Disease.”
The video sees Gaga wrestling multiple versions of herself. We also see the single’s cover—an image of her in a long, dark wig laying on the hood of a car—come to life, as it’s revealed another, leather-clad Gaga is behind the wheel.
Gaga took to social media to share her thought process behind the video. “I think a lot about the relationship I have with my own inner demons,” she begins. It’s never been easy for me to face how I get seduced by chaos and turmoil. It makes me feel claustrophobic.”
“Disease is about facing that fear, facing myself and my inner darkness, and realizing that sometimes I can’t win or escape the parts of myself that scare me. That I can try and run from them but they are still part of me and I can run and run but eventually I’ll meet that part of myself again, even if only for a moment.”
“Dancing, morphing, running, purging. Again and again, back with myself. This integration is ultimately beautiful to me because it’s mine and I’ve learned to handle it. I am the conductor of my own symphony. I am every actor in the plays that are my art and my life. No matter how scary the question, the answers are inside of me. Essential, inextricable parts of what makes me me. I save myself by keeping going. I am the whole me, I am strong, and I am up for the challenge. Happy Halloween.”
“Disease” is the lead single for Gaga’s seventh studio album, which is set to release next year.
Listen to Lady Gaga’s “Disease.”