The Lady Gaga and Dianne Warren collaboration “Till It Happens To You” premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Dianne Warren, known for her powerful ballads such as Christina Aguilera’s “I Turn To You” and Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me” wrote this song with Lady Gaga for The Hunting Ground, a documentary about rape culture in college campuses. While the song is still not available for download, fans that have watched the documentary note the song’s very poignant effect. More importantly, this track aims to serve as an eye-opener to the alarming rape circumstances that happened around the world, whether reported or not.
In a recent exchange of tweets, Lady Gaga and Dianne Warren shows portions of the lyrics of the song. “Till it happens to you, you don’t know how it feels” and “Till your world burns and crashes, till you’re at the end, the end of your rope” are just some of the lines that foreshadow the strength of this potentially classic song. Rape is a prevalent crime in the world, and it feels good that finally a singer with the caliber and influence of Lady Gaga has taken a stand for everyone who has been victimized by this heinous crime.
Aptly, Gaga mentioned that the film in which the song is included, “documents the lives of young people affected by rape.” Therefore, it’s clear that this is another project of hers that aims to promote an advocacy. The singer has always been known to address causes she deems important. Her “Born This Way” talks about equality and acceptance of homosexuality, while “Applause” is about going against the superficial trend in the music industry.
Hence, Lady Gaga should be thanked for standing up with the rest of the world battling against rape and other forms of social injustices. While it puts Gaga one step above her contemporaries, let us hope that this is not the end for her advocacy. Hopefully she will take it even further by coming up with a strong music video in her own unique style to accompany the song. Whatever it ends up being, we can expect it to be something so strong that hopefully it will shake the world to act accordingly.