Sharda Barhydt: Lady Gaga Wrote 'Bad Kids' For 'Extraordinary People,' Producer Says

In latest edition of MTV News' Track by Track, Fernando Garibay breaks down ninth song on Born This Way.
By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Kara Warner

Lady Gaga
Photo: Getty Images

The ninth track on Born This Way, "Bad Kids," is unapologetic Lady Gaga at her fiercest.

The metal-tinged disco anthem about embracing yourself includes a line that has Gaga singing, "I'm a twit, degenerate, young rebel and I'm proud of it / Pump your fist if you would rather mess up than put up with this." Like so many of the anthems on Born This Way, which officially dropped on Monday (May 23), the song is about accepting and celebrating perceived flaws.

If you don't think anyone else gets you, Lady Gaga does, and when she sat down to write the track with producers Fernando Garibay and DJ White Shadow, she had some bad kids in mind. " 'Bad Kids' is something that we all collaborated with — Gaga, White Shadow [and me]," Garibay told MTV News. "Gaga came offstage one night, I remember, and she said, 'I have this idea for a song, "Bad Kids," ' " he recalled.

The song is tough and in-your-face, but also soft and heartwarming, with Gaga singing on the breakdown to the disenfranchised rebels of the world, "Don't be insecure/ If your heart is pure/ You're still good to me/ If you're a bad kid, baby."

That sentiment, Garibay said, perfectly reflects what Mother Monster and all of her little monsters are about. "Just because you're a bad kid growing up, doesn't mean you're a bad person," he said. "And a lot of bad kids end up being extraordinary people, like Lady Gaga, and she wanted to make people who had a rough start or maybe not the most ideal circumstances have a voice and a message. And it's basically about staying true to yourself and if you're bad, so what? You can still be great. There's good, bad and I think that's pretty much what it's talking about."

What do you think of "Bad Kids"? Tell us in the comments!

Don't miss MTV News' hour-long, exclusive interview "Lady Gaga: Inside The Outside" airing Thursday, May 26, at 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.

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