Will Lady Gaga’s ‘Abracadabra’ Save Us All?

Lady Gaga did something during the 2025 Grammys I thought YouTube had killed forever: She dropped her new song, “Abracadabra,” and its accompanying video with essentially no warning. Fans knew the pop icon was planning to tease “Abracadabra” during the broadcast, but these days that usually means 11 seconds of a verse (tops!) followed by a plea to pre-save the track. So to get not only the full song but the entire video was almost too much serotonin to bear. And it literally couldn’t have come soon enough.

You might have noticed things are looking grim these days. Fresh off a terrifying election cycle that feels like a fever dream (or the most craven Ryan Murphy series), America in 2025 is downright disorienting. Wildfires ravaged Los Angeles. Democracy is on the chopping block. Taylor Swift got booed at the Super Bowl in a way that seemed sinister, as if it was a warning about the dark, dystopian days to come. And yet, here’s Lady Gaga releasing a song anchored not by words, but noises and vibes. “Abracadabra,” she sings on the thunderous chorus, followed by her signature mumbles: “amor-ooh-na-na,” “morta-ooh-ga-ga,” “abra-ooh-na-na.”

“Abracadabra” feels like a return to form for Gaga, even if some say it’s a retread of previous iterations of her artistry. So what if it is? The song is her buzziest solo release in years, recently topping the Spotify Global 50 chart and debuting in the top 30 on Billboard’s Hot 100 (even without a full week of data tracking). The song hits. Hard. Of course it does: Gaga’s core songs have never been just dance-floor confections—even when they’re packaged that way.

Gaga recently told Elle magazine that “Abracadabra” is about “facing the challenge of life”: “…when you have to face the world, the people around you, your life, [and] your unique circumstances.”

This is evident in the lyrics, yes, but even more in what’s not as obvious: the 600-watt sledgehammer production, the frantic tempo, and, yes, the senseless chanting in the chorus. “Abracadabra” is powered by pure, animalistic adrenaline, the kind you’ll need to tackle the hardest days of your life. It’s maybe the most germane song Gaga could have released in a world that’s rapidly dissenting into madness, where so many of us feel like our very existence is being threatened.

Lady Gaga has a documented history of delivering near-perfect music as a salve for culture’s toughest times. “Just dance, gonna be okay,” the then-unknown star sang in 2008, which back then felt like both a hedonistic command and a soothing reassurance. Indeed, a lot of us were trying to dance our worries away and for good reason. We were knee-deep in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and were looking for temporary escape. Lots of other artists at the time also traded in pure pleasure-seeking. Kesha was “recession pop” royalty, specifically on tracks like “TikTok” and “We R Who We R,” where she boldly declared, “Tonight, we’re going hard” and “DJ, blow my speakers up.” By 2010, the apocalypse loomed as Usher ordered us to “dance like it’s the last night of our lives.” These songs were aggressive, urgent, and, in a way, matched the panicked energy Americans felt when they looked at gas prices.