Money Honey (Lady Gaga)

Lyrics

[Intro]
Two. Thousand. Eight.
The Fame.
Yeah.

[Verse 1]
August Nineteenth, the whole world is crashing.
But not in this studio.
Not with RedOne and Akon on the boards.
Not with Stefani, twenty-two, from New York.
Hand-stitching her own costumes in some apartment.
Sewing dollar signs onto a homemade leotard.
She built the persona from glitter and glue.
And then she opened her mouth and just… said it.
No poetry. No metaphor.
Just the quiet part, out loud.
I want to drive what I like.
I want to live how I like.
The absolute, shameless, brilliant confession.

[Chorus]
She sang to it like a lover.
Money, honey.
She asked it the only question that mattered.
"I want to know how it feels."
And the critics couldn't decide if it was satire or a shopping list.
And that, right there, that's the art.
The question mark shaped like a dollar sign.
The perfect, bubblegum sneer.

[Verse 2]
Sal Cinquemani over at Slant tried to pin it down.
"Self-aware enough to avoid sounding completely vapid."
Thanks, Sal.
They wanted a statement, an ideology.
She gave them a mirror ball.
Was she mocking the dream or just dreaming bigger than anyone else?
Yes.
She wasn't singing about having it.
She was singing about *wanting* it.
Which is the whole damn engine of the century.

[Chorus]
She sang to it like a lover.
Money, honey.
She asked it the only question that mattered.
"I want to know how it feels."
And the academics are *still* writing papers on the irony.
And that, right there, that's the serve.
The question mark shaped like a dollar sign.
The perfect, bubblegum sneer.

[Bridge]
And the joke was so good, it worked.
It became an empire.
She showed everyone the script.
Perform the desire.
Broadcast the wanting.
Don't apologize for the hunger.
Every influencer with a sponsored post owes her a little check.
She wrote the mission statement for the 2010s.

[Outro]
So how does it feel?
How does it feel?
Does it feel like you thought it would?
She never told us the answer.
She just left the question hanging in the air.
Glittering.