Songfacts®:

• This song about a girl in an abusive relationship features a "Vogue"-style rap breakdown in which Gaga references various females who met a tragic end: Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Sylvia Plath, Princess Diana, and Jon-Benet Ramsey.
• GaGa explained this song to The LA Times December 15, 2009: "The record is about a girl who likes to have sex with the lights off, because she's embarrassed about her body. She doesn't want her man to see her naked. She will be free, and she will let her inner animal out, but only when the lights are out. She doesn't feel free without the moon. These lyrics are a way for me to talk about how I believe women and some men feel innately insecure about themselves all the time. It's not sometimes, it's not in adolescence, it's always.
  
  Also, I'm working with Viva Glam on MAC AIDS Fund stuff and the more I learn about AIDS and HIV... most of the new infections are in women my age, and in women ages 53 to 64, older women who haven't had sex in a long time, and in a moment of passion are irresponsible and contract HIV, and women my age who think their boyfriend won't love them if they speak up. Condoms aren't female. They're making female condoms, but right now it's, "buy a Trojan" – it's for men. So everything's in a man's power, and women are taught to be receivers… It's just a very deluded way of looking at sex.
  
  I guess all of these new things entering my life are changing the way I view my purpose, but that song in particular is about me wanting to live -- but also, the song isn't called 'Dance in the Light.' I'm not a gospel singer trying to cross people over. What I'm saying is, 'I get it. I feel you, I feel the same way, and it's OK.'"
• American poet Sylvia Plath, whom Gaga name checks, committed suicide in 1963 following a long struggle with depression and a marital separation from her fellow poet husband, Ted Hughes. Here are some songs inspired by the tragic wordsmith.
  Crackle And Drag by Paul Westerberg
  Mathematics by Little Boots
  Sylvia by Ralph McTell.