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Bad romance (Lady Gaga)
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Is this song in favour or against prostitution? Read the Song Meaning section to find out.

Unmistakably and uniquely Gaga; who else would start a track doing a tiger impression (‘rah rah rrrah rrrrah rrrah’) to an almost circus-type melody, before launching into lyrics about wanting ‘your ugly’ and ‘your disease’ and encompassing a breakdown in French along the way.
(TeenToday.co.uk)

You may love it or hate it, but the song is original and catchy, and the video entertaining (if not plainly weird and a bit outrageous)

Sing this song to karaoke video: Bad Romance -karaoke

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh! Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh! Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah! Rum-a-Rum-a-ma!
Gaga. Oh, la la!
Want your bad romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah! Rum-a-Rum-a-ma!
Gaga. Oh, la la!
Want your bad romance

I want your ugly, I want your disease
I want your everything as long as it’s free
I want your love, Love-love-love
I want your love

I want your drama, the touch of your hand
I want your leather studded kiss in the scene
I want your love, Love-love-love
I want your love
(Love-love-love, I want your love)

You know that I want you and you know that I need you
I want it bad, your bad romance

I want your love and I want your revenge
You and me could write a bad romance
I want your love and all your lovers' revenge
You and me could write a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh! Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh! Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah! Rum-a-Rum-a-ma!
Gaga. Oh, la la!
Want your bad romance

I want your horror, I want your design
'Cause you're a criminal as long as your mine
I want your love
Love-love-love, I want your love

I want your psycho, your vertigo shtick
Want you in my rear window. Baby, you're sick
I want your love
Love-love-love, I want your love.
(Love-love-love, I want your love)

You know that I want you
And you know that I need you
('cause I'm a freak b***c, baby)
I want a bad, your bad romance

I want your love and I want your revenge
You and me could write a bad romance
I want your love and all your lovers' revenge
You and me could write a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh! Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh! Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Caught in a bad romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah! Rum-a-Rum-a-ma!
Gaga. Oh, la la!!  Want your bad romance

Walk, walk fashion baby
Work it, move that b***h crazy
Walk, walk fashion baby
Work it, move that b***h crazy
Walk, walk fashion baby
Work it, move that b***h crazy
Walk, walk fashion baby
Work it, I'm a free b***h, baby

I want your love and I want your revenge
I want your love, I don’t wanna be friends

Je veux ton amour et je veux ton revenge
Je veux ton amour
I don't wanna be friends

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh! Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
I don't wanna be friends
Caught in a bad romance

I don't wanna be friends
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh! Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
Want your bad romance
Caught in a bad romance
Want your bad romance

I want your love and I want your revenge
You and me could write a bad romance
I want your love and all your lovers' revenge
You and me could write a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh! Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
(Want your bad romance)
Caught in a bad romance
(Want your bad romance)

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh! Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!
(Want your bad romance)
Caught in a bad romance

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah! Rum-a-Rum-a-ma!
Gaga. Oh la la! Want your bad romance

CAUGHT IN A BAD ROMANCE= Trapped in a dysfunctional love relationship. It is bad for you, but you can't escape.

 

OH, LA LA!= a French expression to show surprise (="Oh my God!")

YOUR UGLY= The ugly part of you. Your dark side.
Here she's using the adjective "ugly" as a noun (instead of "ugliness"), which is not usual English, but this is her song and she says whatever she wants ;-)

YOUR DESEASE= The sick part of you (the psycho in you).
Disease is illness, but here it refers to mental sickness, not physical one.

AS LONG AS= if

YOUR DRAMA= The dramatic part of your life or the terrible part of you.

LEATHER STUDDED KISS= Leather /leðə*/ is a material made out of the skin of some animals. In bondage (a kind of sex involving pain and submission) people wear black leather garments with metal pieces resembling buttons or tack heads called STUDS, so STUDDED LEATHER is a leather outfit with metal studs (see picture). A "leather studded kiss" is a kiss studded with leather, which doesn't mean anything (another Gaga's "poetical figure"), but somehow it means that she wants him to kiss her while wearing studded leather.

I WANT IT BAD= I want it very much.
(in the same way, "I love you so bad"means "I love you very very much")

REVENGE= Doing something wrong to someone in return of something wrong they did to you.

PSYCHO= A psycho is a psychopath (a person who is dangerously insane), but it can also be used as an adjective (a psycho man is a crazy man). So YOUR PSYCHO is used here as the other adjective we saw above ("Your ugly") and it means "I want the insane part of you).

YOUR VERTIGO SHTICK= (slang) a shtick is a special talent. This phrase is a reference to Alfred Hitchcock film "Vertigo", as well as the other parts here: "Psycho" and "Rear Window", but all of them also have a sexual meaning here.

YOU'RE SICK= You are insane, you desire very abnormal and bad things.

FREAK= very unnusual; abnormal; eccentric.

B****C= (bad word) a prostitute (as a job or for devotion). Also used as an insult for a woman who you don't like at all.

Je veux ton amour et je veux ton revenge (French) = I want your love and I want your revenge.

WANNA= Want to

Some people think this song is about falling in love with a man to the extent of accepting all his darkest side completely, others think it's about falling in love with a married man, others say it is about bondage (sex involving pain and submission), other's think it's an apology of prostitution, others think it is a metaphor for other things... so help yourself and pick up your favourite interpretation but, personally, I think there's enough evidence in the lyrics to say that this song is all against prostitution.

Sexual human trafficking
is the practise of deceiving people into leaving their town or country and go to another place with the promise of a good job (or, as on this video, kidnapped), but when they arrive there they become sexual slaves and are forced to practise prostitution. Many of today's prostitutes in developed countries are sexual slaves.

This denounce is not only in the lyrics, but also on the video. The prostitutes (Gaga included, of course) come out of some kind of cryonic capsules in the shape of a coffin labelled "Monster", suggesting death and perversion. One girl with an innocet look is captured by other women and forced to drink something, and then she next appears dressed as a prostitute. She is dancing kind of erotically in front of men who are bidding for her favours. And at the end of the video, the man who managed to take her to bed lies dead, electrocuted, and Gaga's boobs are sending out sparks, so she is the one who killed him as a punishment for trafficking with women. So her sentence "I want your love and all your lovers' revenge" means that I want to have sex with you to avenge all the prostitutes who had sex with you before.

But this man was simply a customer, not part of the sexual mafia, so did he deserve punishment? Well, the idea in this song is that sexual slaves exist because there are men who pay for that, in the same way as drug traffic exists because there are people who buy drugs. So every man who hires the services of a prostitute is a criminal (that's why she says "'cause you're a criminal as long as you're mine", that is, if I'm a prostitute and you have sex with me, you are a criminal).

Other explanatory sentences are, for instance, "I want your love (= sex) / I want it so bad / I don't want to be friends". That means she needs to have sex with him (because she needs the money to pay the sex mafia) but she doesn't want his love or his friendship. She just hates him, so "I want your love and I want your revenge". This is not a love relationship, it's not a good romance; this is a bad romance, the perversion of love, and she's trapped in it (caught in a bad romance) because she has no choice.

Also, the sentence "I want your everything as long as it’s free" probably means "sex can be fine if it's free, but it's a crime if you pay for it" (for the reason mentioned above). Well, you probably know how Lady Gaga is anyway.

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