Oh yes! I'm going there. It's about time someone tackles the surprisingly complex creative mind of Lady Gaga. I refuse to think that her sole intent and motivation for her lyrics is sex. She can't be blessed with so much vocal and musical talent to throw it away for cheap fame. Or can she?
Anyways, if you peel back the obvious references to sex I would say that Poker Face is themed around identity and accepting the cards you've been dealt in life.
First off the lyrics open with a metaphor about Texas Hold 'Em. At the surface, this metaphor is obviously about "[playing] the cards... That's on his heart." But the original metaphor of life being like playing cards is much deeper. In life we are dealt certain cards to play with. Some we "hold 'em," others we "fold 'em." Really your playing poker in life. You have to live life with the cards you've been given, what other people have in their hand you have no control over.
Then Lady Gaga has this feeling of "He can't read my poker face." To me that sounds like it could mean something along the lines of 'He doesn't understand me.' In poker you want to win. You have to make the most of what you got. Sometimes your blessed and other times you have to make a 2 and a Jack (of different suits) work. But really a poker face just creates a barrier between you and the other players. They don't know if your happy or sad. They don't understand you essentially. That's rough. And it's lonely. Poker is not a team sport. You fly solo. Though in cards having a poker face is beneficial. In life, it can cause a lot of hurt.
Delving deeper, to Love means to take risks. "Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun." Thus love is not the same without risk. (Please don't take this analogy as love is death. It most certainly isn't). Anyways, with these lyrics I feel like Lady Gaga let someone behind her poker face. She let her walls down because she wanted to love this person. To love someone fully you have to open yourself up to them. Allow them to understand you; allow them to experience all of you. It's risky business and can cause a lot of pain. But it's necessary to "show him what I got." The lyrics lead me to infer that this experience of love left her hurt seeing as she sings the lines "She's got to love nobody" in her refrain. I guess you could look at this from two perspectives. The first being that she got hurt or the second as a realization. For those of you who saw the movie Eat, Pray, Love you may recall the scene where Liz yells at Felipe that she doesn't need to love someone else to prove she loves herself. That is how I wish to take it. I hope to believe that this is where Lady Gaga accepts the cards she's been given in life and loves herself for them. After all she does sing, "Check this hand cause I'm Marvelous!"
Now the real question, Where is God?
From my own experience in life I would say that God is in the line "Check this hand cause I'm Marvelous!" I've felt the sting of playing with cards I didn't necessarily want. I let it get to me. And because of that I put up a poker face and made sure no one could understand the real me. Somewhere along those lines though I took a chance at love and let my guard down. I began to realize how "marvelous" I really am. In The midst of chaos I was able to find God in my search for love and my search for identity. I found God helping me understand how I need to play my cards. I guess what I'm trying to say is I stopped asking God to give me new cards and instead embraced the ones he's given me. My cards are really my cross, but without those cards there is no way I can win the jackpot of eternal joy in heaven.
So Lady Gaga's song maybe all about sex. Only she knows. The great thing about art is that there is also your perspective. So take with it what you will.
Love is a risk, but it's worth finding that shelter in someone else, especially God.
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