“How Bad Do U Want Me” has quickly become a fan-favorite track from Lady Gaga’s new album, Mayhem, but she nearly left the song on the studio floor.
“I almost didn’t put that on the album,” the pop star, 38, revealed during her interview on the Wednesday, March 12, episode of Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers’ “Las Culturistas” podcast. The Oscar winner went on to explain that the song, despite having a “total hyperpop” sound, is much more personal than listeners might realize.
“[My fiancé] Michael [Polansky] and I started that song at home, but I started it first and he heard me singing it. And he walks in from the kitchen and he goes, ‘Is that about me?’ And I was like, ‘No,’” she recalled with a laugh. “And then he came on in and we started to finish it together. That song embodies a feeling that I’ve had probably my whole life, which is that I always felt archetyped as the ‘bad girl.’”
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Gaga acknowledged that the song’s lyrics are “kind of funny” with their references to “ripped-up jeans” and tattoos, but they reflect her own mixed feelings about her so-called “bad girl” image.
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“I’ve always felt this … shame that I’ve always been at war with, this feeling that if I am interested in someone that they’re actually longing for a good girl, but they’re stuck with me,” she explained. “And I’m who they really want, but we’re in this three-way relationship and there is no actual other good girl. The good girl’s in their head, and they’re kind of comparing me the whole time.”
She added, “It’s so funny too because it’s a fun pop song, but I cried when I wrote it.”
After the song was finished, Gaga said she hesitated to put it on Mayhem, but Polansky encouraged her to keep it on the final track list.
“Michael was like, ‘You have to, your fans are gonna love that song,’” she said. “Sometimes when things are really super pop I get a weird reaction. I felt this way about ‘Just Dance’ — thank God I didn’t listen to myself then.”
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Since Mayhem dropped Friday, March 7, “How Bad Do U Want Me” has become one of the album’s most-discussed songs. The track initially made headlines when fans began to wonder whether they heard Taylor Swift singing background vocals on the tune, which at first listen does sound a little like some of Swift’s work with frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff.
An insider confirmed to Us Weekly, however, that Swift, 35, does not appear on the song. Gaga has previously expressed her love for Swift, though, so it’s not too far-out to imagine a collaboration could still happen one day.
“I go on the internet and, like, cry,” Gaga told Vogue of Swift in September 2024, noting that she’s also a fan of Billie Eilish, Charli XCX and Chappell Roan. “And I love Taylor Swift too. And Kesha. I watch it all, and I’m like, ‘Yup. Go! Just go.’”
Us Weekly
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