"Baby does her dance in the dark," [artist id="3061469"]Lady Gaga[/artist] sings, " 'cause when he's looking she falls apart."
If you thought the pop superstar was referring to something as simple as a night out at the club in "Dance in the Dark," [news id="1626823"]from The Fame Monster,[/news] you don't know Gaga very well -- and you're flat-out wrong. As she explained to The Los Angeles Times, the tune is about a rather more intimate experience -- one that takes place not within the bass-blaring confines of a nightclub but between two people alone in a bedroom.
"The record is about a girl who likes to have sex with the lights off, because she's embarrassed about her body," Gaga explained. "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."
The song goes on to reference two supernatural trends-du-jour -- "Around her kiss is a vampire grin/ Moonlights away while she is howling at him" she sings -- as a means to express how people rely on external cues to cope with internal anxiety.
"She doesn't feel free without the moon," Gaga said. "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."
And it applies to everyone, regardless of whether you have a string of Billboard chart toppers or you're listening to the track in your car. Though acknowledging that she's in a "deeper, more compassionate place" since writing her debut album, The Fame, Gaga made clear that she continues to struggle with issues of body image and self-doubt in her own life.
"[T]he song isn't called 'Dance in the Light,' " she said. "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.' "