Diamond Heart

Album: Joanne (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • Lady Gaga wrote this about her teen years when she was a "young, wild" go-go dancer with a "diamond heart."

    "I remember takin home 400 bucks feelin like a baller," she tweeted.
  • Gaga references in the first verse her teenage experience of being sexually assaulted by a man 20 years her senior.

    Some a--hole broke me in
    Wrecked all my innocence


    Gaga also references the sexual abuse she endured on the Artpop track "Swine" and the Diane Warren collaboration "Til It Happens To You."
  • Gaga wrote the song with Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme. It was helmed by Joanne producers Mark Ronson and BloodPop along with Jeff Bhasker (Kanye West, Bruno Mars, Alicia Keys).
  • The two credited drummers on the track are Josh Tillman (aka Father John Misty) and Arctic Monkeys stickman Matt Helders.
  • Gaga explained the song's backstory to NME: "When I moved downtown [New York] at 17 I became a go-go dancer. I remember looking at the men and thinking to myself: 'Lay it on me. I know that you think you know what I am, but the truth is I may not be perfect – yeah, Dad! – and I might not be flawless – Dad! World! – but I have a diamond heart. I have a good and strong spirit within me.' Life is a dog fight for a lot of people. When you find the pitbull within yourself, that's Joanne."

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