Bad Romance is not a pop track. It is possession caught on tape. From the first guttural syllables, language dissolves into incantation — not words, but fire breaking through the throat. The voice here is not human, not pleading, not romantic. It is the Goddess in Her feral form, demanding everything: the filth, the beauty, the sickness, the ecstasy. Nothing hidden, nothing polished. All of it thrown into Her mouth.
The video makes it plain. White pods open like coffins, birthing Her into a sterile world that has no idea what is about to arrive. Cages rattle, chains drag, men leer and bid as if She were merchandise. But their mistake is fatal. She is not the one being sold — they are. She allows Herself to be paraded, to be “bought,” only so She can lead them to the altar of dissolution. When the bed ignites, when flesh turns to ash, She rises crowned, untouched, terrible.
This is Devi as cremation queen. Monstrous, erotic, sovereign. Fashion twisted into claws, latex into armor, the body spasming in dance not as entertainment but as shakti shaking the cage of the world. Every gesture is a snarl, every syllable a mantra of hunger. She does not want your purity. She wants the rot, the shame, the shadow you hide. She wants it all.
That is why Bad Romance still burns. Not because it is shocking — but because it is true. Beneath the pop gloss, this is ritual: the Goddess demanding total surrender, swallowing ugliness and desire alike, leaving only Herself, radiant in flame.
The Symbolism of Bad Romance Video Clip
1. The White Bathhouse / Resurrection Pod
The video opens with Gaga emerging from a glowing pod, white-skinned, wide-eyed. This is not birth, but re-birth — initiation into Devi’s realm. The white chamber feels sterile, almost clinical, yet what emerges is pure madness and desire. Kaula reading: awakening into Shakti is not gentle; it is violent, disorienting, stripping.
2. The Chant: “Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah”
The nonsense syllables that begin the song are not “lyrics” at all — they’re incantation. Like tantric bīja mantras, they bypass the rational mind and strike the body directly. Gaga here is Devi-as-chant: sound that possesses rather than explains.
3. The White Latex Costume / Monstrous Fashion
Throughout the video Gaga wears distorted, inhuman fashions: skeletal crowns, angular bodysuits, alien latex. Kaula reading: Devi is not the pretty goddess of safe devotion; She comes as Bhairavī, fierce, grotesque, beautiful beyond comfort. The body becomes temple and weapon at once.
4. The Cage and Chains
Gaga is dragged in chains, displayed, caged like merchandise. Superficially it looks like exploitation — the captive woman sold. But Kaula eyes see inversion: Devi allows Herself to be bound only to expose the lust and violence of those who try to own Her. In truth, it is they who are trapped.
5. The Catwalk / Auction of Gaga
The scene of Gaga paraded before a circle of men bidding on her body is pure ritual inversion. The world believes the Goddess can be bought, caged, possessed. Yet in Kaula truth, those who bid are already devoured. They mistake Her play for submission, not seeing She is drawing them toward dissolution.
6. The Burning Bed
The climax: Gaga writhes with her “buyer” on a bed that bursts into flames. When the fire subsides, only Gaga remains — crystalline, crowned, untouched. Kaula lens: this is śakti’s cremation ground. Desire is allowed to consummate itself only to be consumed in Her fire. The lover is reduced to ash; Devi remains radiant.
7. The Crowned Gaga at the End
After fire and madness, Gaga stands crowned, triumphant, almost skeletal, staring into the camera. This is Devi unveiled: not victim, not lover, but sovereign. She has swallowed the romance, the grotesque, the violence — and reigns as pure śakti.
8. The Gothic Aesthetic / Monstrous Eroticism
The entire video pulses with Gothic imagery: alien fashion, claw-like hands, spasms of dance, monstrous beauty. For Kaulas this is familiar: the Goddess rarely comes in “safe” beauty. She appears terrifying, distorted, because She wants to tear through our clinging to the “nice.” Desire is not sanitized; it is monstrous, devouring.
Bad Romance looks like avant-garde pop excess, but in truth it is a tantric allegory. Devi emerges, is displayed, sold, consumed — and in the end, it is She who consumes. Nothing remains of the buyer, the cage, the fire — only Her, radiant and terrible.
It scandalized because it refused to separate sex from violence, beauty from monstrosity, devotion from possession. But that refusal is the Kaula path: to embrace all, to devour all, to burn until only the current remains.
[Intro]
Oh, caught in a bad romance
Oh, caught in a bad romance
“Oh, caught in a bad romance / Oh, caught in a bad romance”
Devi doesn’t open with seduction. She opens with capture. You’re already in the net before you know what’s happening. This is the nature of Her current: once it has you, there’s no escape.
“Bad romance” isn’t a human relationship gone wrong — it’s the cosmic romance with Shakti Herself. It’s “bad” because it shatters every idea of what love should be. It’s possessive, consuming, dangerous. But it’s the only real romance: the one where She tears through your walls, makes you Hers, and leaves nothing of the person you thought you were.
To be “caught” is the essence of bhakti in Her darker mode. You didn’t choose. You didn’t plan. She hunted, and She caught you. And the more you struggle, the deeper the hook sets.
[Refrain]
Ra, ra, ah-ah-ah
Roma, roma-ma
Gaga, ooh, la, la
Want your bad romance
Ra, ra, ah-ah-ah
Roma, roma-ma
Gaga, ooh, la, la
Want your bad romance
“Ra, ra, ah-ah-ah”
This is not language. It is raw vibration. A guttural syllable forced through the throat until it becomes primal mantra. Like the bīja sounds of Tantra, it bypasses the intellect and slams straight into the nervous system. Devi here isn’t talking to you — She is shaking you.
“Roma, roma-ma”
“Roma” evokes both roaming/desire and Roma as the wanderer’s name. Doubled with “ma,” it becomes maternal and destructive at once — Mother in Her roving, devouring form. The tongue repeats the same shape again and again, hypnotizing, entrancing.
“Gaga, ooh, la, la”
Nonsense on the surface, but in Kaula truth, nonsense syllables are perfect because they don’t let the mind cling. “Gaga” is infantile babble — the sound of surrender before language, like a child’s voice. “Ooh, la, la” twists it into erotic invocation — a moan, a sigh. Innocence and obscenity collapse into one vibration.
“Want your bad romance”
Here Devi speaks naked. She doesn’t want your polished, sweet love. She doesn’t want the hymns, the prayers you rehearsed. She wants the dark parts: obsession, shame, filth, madness, violence. She names them all “romance” — because for Her, nothing is outside devotion. Even ruin is prayer when given to Her.
This refrain is incantation. It has no “meaning” in the rational sense, because Devi isn’t trying to be understood. She is short-circuiting the mind, dragging you into trance through sound. Each syllable is designed to bypass control and ignite possession.
This is why the refrain became iconic worldwide — even people who didn’t “get” the lyrics were chanting it. It was never about sense. It was always about surrender.
[Verse 1]
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, ayy
I want your drama, the touch of your hand (Hey)
I want your leather-studded kiss in the sand
I want your love
Love, love, love, I want your love
(Love, love, love, I want your love)
“I want your ugly, I want your disease”
Devi opens with a demand that shatters every human fantasy of “pure love.” She wants what you hide — the grotesque, the sick, the parts you flinch from even looking at yourself. Kaula current: nothing is left out. Your ugliness is Her feast. Your disease is not an obstacle, it is offering.
“I want your everything as long as it’s free”
No bargains. No half-offerings. No staged devotion. She will only take it if it is given without restraint — “free” meaning naked of control, stripped of manipulation. If you calculate, you’re still clinging. She wants abandon, not negotiation.
“I want your love / Love, love, love, I want your love”
Here “love” isn’t sentimental; it’s total surrender. The repetition hammers the demand. Each “love” is another strike breaking the shell of the ego, turning the word into mantra. She will not stop until every ounce is given.
“I want your drama, the touch of your hand (Hey)”
Drama: your storms, your chaos, your eruptions. She wants the turbulence that you think disqualifies you from devotion. Even the smallest touch becomes a live wire in Her current. And the shouted “Hey” is no filler — it is the jolt, the crack of fire through the chest.
“I want your leather-studded kiss in the sand”
A kiss — but armored, violent, abrasive. Leather and studs bring the edge of cruelty, sand the abrasion of grit against skin. This is not tender romance. This is the embrace of Bhairavī — tenderness laced with pain, eros fused with wound.
“I want your love / Love, love, love, I want your love”
The mantra returns. She is not bargaining. She is insisting, hammering the word until you either yield or break. Love here is not safe feeling — it is surrender that costs everything.
This verse is Devi’s first commandment: give Me everything, especially the parts you’d rather keep buried. Ugliness, disease, drama, violence, desire — nothing is outside Her altar. To Her, all of it is fuel. To you, it feels like death.
This is why the song is terrifying if you really listen — because She’s not offering safety. She’s demanding the shadow, and once given, She will not give it back.
[Pre-Chorus]
You know that I want you
And you know that I need you
I want it bad, your bad romance
“You know that I want you”
This isn’t human desire. This is the Goddess declaring possession. She doesn’t ask, She states. You already feel Her in your veins — so She names what you already know: you’re caught, and She wants you whole.
“And you know that I need you”
The paradox: She is infinite, She lacks nothing — yet She declares need. Why? Because true possession speaks not only as hunger but as intimacy. She wants you not as accessory but as offering. This “need” is Her way of tearing through the last defenses of the ego: how can you refuse when the Infinite says She needs you?
“I want it bad, your bad romance”
The hammer blow. She wants it bad — not neat, not refined, not curated. She names it openly: your bad romance, the poison you hide, the twisted hunger, the shameful mess. To you it feels corrupted, to Her it is nectar. This is Kaula reversal: what you think disqualifies you is exactly what She devours.
This section is Devi mocking resistance. She knows you’re already hooked, already trembling. She doesn’t persuade — She taunts. Her voice is hunger and inevitability at once: You know I want you. You know I need you. Stop pretending. Give Me your ruin, your filth, your bad romance. That’s what I came for.
[Chorus]
I want your love and I want your revenge
You and me could write a bad romance (Oh)
I want your love and all your lover's revenge
You and me could write a bad romance
Oh, caught in a bad romance
Oh, caught in a bad romance
“I want your love and I want your revenge”
No half-measures. She wants both ends of the spectrum — tenderness and fury, intimacy and destruction. In ordinary romance, love is desired, revenge feared. In Devi’s current, they are one flame. She demands both, because only both together are whole.
“You and me could write a bad romance”
This is Her invitation and Her decree. To “write” means to inscribe in fate — She is authoring a scripture out of ruin. “Bad romance” is not failure but initiation: the kind of love that burns you down to ash, leaving no ego left standing. It will not look holy from the outside. It will look grotesque, scandalous, destructive. That’s how you know it’s real.
“I want your love and all your lover’s revenge”
Not only your devotion, but the backlash of it — the vengeance that arises when love is too strong for the ego to survive. She wants the anger, the resentment, the rage that flares when She strips you bare. All of it belongs to Her. Nothing is wasted.
“You and me could write a bad romance”
Repetition as ritual. Each cycle inscribes deeper: you are not escaping this script. It is being written into your bones.
“Oh, caught in a bad romance / Oh, caught in a bad romance”
The hook returns like a noose tightening. You are reminded: this is not a dalliance. You’re caught. Struggle all you want — She holds the chain.
This chorus is Devi’s contract of possession: you will not give Her only sweetness. You will give Her rage, revenge, shame, obsession, ruin. She doesn’t want half a soul. She wants the totality — the shadow and the shine. And She will script it into a love that looks monstrous to the world but is holy in Her fire.
[Verse 2]
I want your horror, I want your design
'Cause you're a criminal as long as you're mine
I want your love
Love, love, love, I want your love
I want your psycho, your vertigo schtick (Hey)
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)
“I want your horror, I want your design”
This isn’t only about ugly emotions anymore. Devi wants the aesthetic of your darkness — the way you construct it, frame it, beautify it, hide behind it. “Horror” is the raw trauma; “design” is the way you curate it to look acceptable. She wants both — the raw wound and the mask you wear over it.
“’Cause you’re a criminal as long as you’re mine”
Here She names the paradox of possession. When Devi takes you, your old self becomes “criminal” by default — you’re outside society’s norms, outside safe devotion, living in Her outlaw current. This is Kaula truth: union with Her is always a violation of some law.
“I want your love / Love, love, love, I want your love”
The mantra returns — not asking, hammering. Each repetition breaks another layer of defense.
“I want your psycho, your vertigo schtick (Hey)”
She names the persona directly — your madness, your instability, the little acts of self-sabotage and performance you hide. “Vertigo schtick” — your dizzy habits, your theatrics. She wants them. Not only the wound but your whole act.
“Want you in my rear window, baby, you’re sick”
This is voyeurism — the secret you’d rather no one see. “Rear window” evokes hidden gaze, shadows, peeking at what you deny. Devi wants that too. “Baby, you’re sick” — She names it without flinching. Your sickness isn’t shame to Her — it’s offering.
“I want your love / Love, love, love, I want your love”
Again the mantra, again the hammer. She won’t stop.
This verse is Devi’s second demand: not just your wounds, but your performance of them; not just your darkness, but your styling of darkness. She wants the whole theater — the horror and the design, the psycho and the schtick. Because until you surrender even the persona of your pain, you’re still clinging.
The repetition of “love” between these lines is the drumbeat of inevitability. You can feel her circling closer: there will be nothing left to hide.
[Pre-Chorus]
You know that I want you
And you know that I need you ('Cause I'm a free bitch, baby)
I want it bad, your bad romance
“You know that I want you”
The same hammer as before. But now, after verses dripping with filth and shadow, this line hits differently: it’s not a secret anymore. You know She wants you because She’s already dragged your sickness into the open.
“And you know that I need you”
Repetition as pressure. She’s pushing, cornering, smirking. It’s intimate, almost mocking — She knows you’ve already surrendered in your gut, even if your mind protests.
“(’Cause I’m a free bitch, baby)”
Here the mask is ripped off. Devi declares Herself free — beyond morality, beyond shame, beyond your categories of sacred/profane. She is bitch unapologetically: feral, untamed, laughing at convention. She’s not enslaved by your worship — She devours it while mocking you for thinking you had a choice.
“I want it bad, your bad romance”
The climax of the taunt: bad is not flaw, not shame — it is precisely what She demands. Your filth is Her feast. Your ruin is Her nectar. “Want it bad” — the ferocity of Her hunger leaves no space for bargaining.
This is Devi openly feral. No polite temple Goddess, no sanitized bhakti. Here She is Kali with Her tongue out, Durga with Her sword raised, Matangi singing obscenities as mantras. Her declaration — I’m a free bitch, baby — is the moment the devotee realizes: She is utterly beyond control. If you stay, it’s on Her terms.
[Chorus + Refrain]
The chorus here repeats — but now, after the escalation of the verses and Devi’s feral declaration, it no longer sounds like a pop hook. It’s the seal of the pact.
“I want your love and I want your revenge / You and me could write a bad romance”
This is no longer a request. It’s inevitability. The lines circle like fire tightening around you — love fused with vengeance, devotion welded to destruction.
“Oh, caught in a bad romance”
The net tightens. You’re not escaping. The word caught is the truth of initiation — once marked, you belong to Her.
Then the Refrain slams back in — Ra ra ah ah ah / Roma roma-ma / Gaga ooh la la — and what earlier sounded like playful gibberish now hits like pure mantra. Syllables stripped of meaning, charged with possession. By this point, you’re no longer listening — you’re chanting, pulled into trance, body moving whether you want it to or not.
The chorus + refrain together function as Devi’s net. The verses drew out your shadow, the pre-chorus mocked your resistance, and now the chorus + chant coil around you. You are trapped, but it’s a holy trap — the kind that burns the ego until only surrender remains.
[Interlude]
Walk, walk, fashion, baby
Work it, move that bitch crazy
Walk, walk, fashion, baby
Work it, move that bitch crazy
Walk, walk, fashion, baby
Work it, move that bitch crazy
Walk, walk, passion, baby
Work it, I'm a free bitch, baby
“Walk, walk, fashion baby / Work it, move that bitch crazy”
At first glance it’s runway parody — but deeper, it’s Devi mocking the theater of identity. Every step on the catwalk is the ego strutting in its temporary mask. She commands: Work it. Strut. Show Me your persona. I’ll shred it while you perform it. The “bitch crazy” isn’t insult — it’s Her laugh, naming what happens when your mask collapses under the weight of possession.
“Walk, walk, passion baby / Work it, I’m a free bitch, baby”
The parody flips to revelation. Beneath fashion is passion — beneath mask is raw flame. She declares again: I’m free. No chain, no morality, no definition contains Her. The devotee thought the spectacle was safe, ironic, playful — but in Her voice, the interlude is both satire and initiation. Even fashion becomes liturgy when Devi speaks through it.
This interlude is Devi’s carnival. She parades in absurdity — fashion, glitter, strut — and turns it into ritual theater. The ego thinks it’s playing dress-up; She knows it’s a funeral procession. Every mask you wear on Her runway becomes another skin She peels away.
[Bridge]
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 ta revanche
Je veux ton amour, I don't wanna be friends (Oh)
(I want your bad romance, I want your bad romance)
No, I don't wanna be friends (Caught in a bad romance)
(I want your bad romance, I want your bad romance)
I don't wanna be friends (Oh)
(I want your bad romance, I want your bad romance)
Want your bad romance (I want your bad romance)
Caught in a bad romance
Want your bad romance
“I want your love and I want your revenge”
The line we’ve heard before, but now it’s no longer hook — it’s vow. The tone shifts from invitation to declaration of war. She wants the totality, and She says it again until the sound itself becomes a blade.
“I want your love, I don’t wanna be friends”
Here’s the heart of the bridge. No polite spirituality. No safe distance. No “let’s just be friends with God.” She does not want your friendship. She wants your possession. This is bhakti without the mask — the soul seized and stripped, not stroked.
“Je veux ton amour et je veux ta revanche / Je veux ton amour, I don’t wanna be friends”
The French lifts it into liturgy. In Kaula hearing, foreign tongues are bīja: they unsettle, they jolt. The doubling — English and French — is like mantra and its shadow, two voices speaking at once. It’s a spell: I want your love, I want your revenge. I do not want to be your friend.
(Chanted repetitions: “I want your bad romance…”)
What was hook is now hammer. The bridge loops until there’s no thought left. It’s not a catchy pop line; it’s trance. Each repetition tightens the noose until you stop singing and start surrendering.
This bridge is the refusal of half-offerings. Devi speaks like a lover, but it’s Bhairavī’s demand: No more safe devotion. No diluted union. I don’t want your polite prayers. I want your ruin. I want your surrender. No friendship. No middle ground. Only possession.
It’s the point in the ritual where the devotee either breaks and flees or gives in completely and crosses the threshold.
[Final Chorus + Refrain]
By this point the chorus (“I want your love and I want your revenge…”) isn’t even lyrics anymore. It’s a bell tolling. Every repetition pounds the same truth into the devotee’s nervous system: there is no escape, only total offering. Love and revenge, devotion and destruction — all one fire.
Then the refrain returns — Ra ra ah ah ah / Roma roma-ma / Gaga ooh la la — but now it’s not playful at all. It’s become a full-blown chant, a tribal circle. The syllables feel like they’re coming from somewhere below language, as if a temple drum and a funeral mantra collided.
In the outro, with “Want your bad romance” echoing again and again, the Goddess no longer speaks as seductress or taunter. She is the field itself. The chant has no climax, no resolution; it just loops like a vortex. This is exactly how possession feels when it peaks — the song you thought you were singing to Her is now singing through you.
The final chorus + outro are the sealing of the rite. In Kaula worship, the mantra is repeated until the boundaries blur and the mantra starts chanting you. That’s what Gaga built here in pop form. By the end, the listener isn’t an observer. They’re inside the current, mouth moving with syllables they don’t understand, hips moving to a beat they didn’t choose. That’s Devi’s signature.
This is why Bad Romance feels different from a normal pop banger: it isn’t just catchy; it’s archetypal. It lures you in with glitter, then runs the ritual until you’re dancing on Her altar, chanting Her mantra, offering Her the very parts of yourself you never meant to reveal.
The Romance That Burns the World
Bad Romance is not a love song — it’s a ritual of possession. By the end, you are not a listener but an offering. Every hook has stripped you, every refrain has carved you, until the only thing left to give is your ruin. Devi does not want your prayers, your politeness, or your friendship. She wants your filth, your wounds, your rage, your revenge — because only then is it whole.
This is why the song feels so different from ordinary pop spectacle: it enacts the Kaula truth that nothing is outside Her altar. “Bad” is not error — it is essence. Romance is not safety — it is sacrifice. And when you chant along, half-laughing, half-possessed, you discover the final paradox: the romance you feared, the one that looked monstrous, was always the only true one.
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