78. SWINE (6,94)
"You're just a pig inside a human body"
Highest: 10 x 10 (
@R27's fiance
@Remorque @daninternational @bad karma
@V3RYP05H @GimmeWork @Sprockrooster and husband
@Cordyceps @ohaimanabu)
Lowest: 0 x 1 (
@Ashling92)
Me: 10
I knew "Swine" would probably be the first 10 I'd lose. I also will defend this song to my
grave.
Girls, I have spent... hours trying to think about what to write about this song, and it's admittedly extremely hard. Maybe I am putting too much thought into it just for a handful of you to
immediately be like "good riddance!" (asdfghjkl I'm not forcing anyone to like the song, believe me, you have every right to even despise it, it's a piece of art that can be liked or not just like any other, so feel free to express your opinion regardless), but something makes me want to do it justice and try my best to translate why I like it so much. Perhaps some of you might look at it differently if you care to read this lengthy ass writeup. Not the most exciting Saturday night plan, I will admit.
I should also maybe say that I will be talking about s*xual abuse, so be warned.
In doing research for this song, I was surprised to find out that she did say this song was about rape. On Howard Stern, and very explicitly. She also said it was about demoralization. Rage, fury, passion, and pain, which she was holding inside of her. Stefani was raped by a record producer, became pregnant, and was taken somewhere to terminate, after which she was put in a car and dropped off at some curb. She was 19.
I have already shared my belief that this experience colors her entire work one way or another. So, what do you get when you try to condense those feelings into a song? You get something akin to a noisy and messy slaughter. You get something that sounds like tubes and rubber pipes cutting through flesh. You get a roller coaster ride that drops down into everything someone made you hate about yourself. The squealing of a swine.
My favorite thing about "Swine" from a songwriting point of view is how this hostile energy of the song, this... disgust that permeates it like some ooze on the white tiles of a surgical room, seems to be coming from
and aimed at three different entities that are all screaming at each other. It's Gaga cursing her abuser, it's Gaga's abuser demoralizing her, it's Gaga insulting herself. Everybody's calling everybody a swine within the narrative of the song. How... devastating to be put through an experience that makes you even consider calling yourself such an unpleasant term. I often think about that, and it's in the back of my mind even when I'm trashing Chromatica. Because it's all connected. Just
what made her want to lock herself up in that proverbial room and chainsmoke and relegate the production of her album to third parties.
What was so damn taxing about the Lady Gaga persona.
What is that damn broken mirror she won't stop talking about. I've always had my guesses. Abuse can destroy many things in its wake, the main one being the mind of the victim. It often leads them to stop wanting to be themselves, and the only way out often seems to be splitting into a statuesque and unbreakable self that no one has taken yet. You ultimately have to really face what happened and put the pieces back together if you want to go on at all.
I think my love for this song, as someone who... well, not to be parasocial but yes,
loves this woman, stems largely from the fact that she could make it. That she was going through hell inside of her mind and she still made it. That she, once again, put her trauma into art and was able to keep walking ahead for a few more steps because of it. That she lived to tell, because many victims don't. I guess that's also why the noisy aspect of the song just works for me, because it was never
supposed to sound pleasant. And I also happen to think that it goes off, quite frankly.
I think her debut of the song at SwineFest is brilliant. A damn exorcism. She goes even harder on the squealing and gets into quite the generous trance. The bouncing dancers in all-white outfits with pig masks on, the canvases with track titles being dropped down, all of that mess making it hard to physically see her onstage.
Gaga's mask being the face of a pig with glitter thrown on top (!).
I expect to get close to death on this hill, trust me, but to me "Swine" is one of Gaga's most underrated moments and the heart of ARTPOP in many ways.
