Gagging For Gag Order

Although traces of the raw, ethereal Kesha everyone’s talking about on Gag Order had appeared in flickers on 2017’s Rainbow, something about her, let’s just say it, “aura” on the latest record seems to be resonating far more with listeners. Between Rainbow and Gag Order, 2020’s High Road was Kesha’s attempt at toeing the line between her then-fractured persona of party girl/goddess of sleazecore and her newfound sense of spirituality post-trauma. That COVID-19 waylaid any chance of touring High Road could have perhaps been interpreted as a sign to Kesha that she ought to “dig deeper.” Not to say that High Road doesn’t have many gems, including “My Own Dance,” “Raising Hell” and “Resentment,” but perhaps something about it didn’t ring true for Kesha as she sought to marry her “old self” with her “new” one. Billed as a “full return to Kesha’s pop roots, after leaning into a more country–soul sound,” High Road got its fair share of praise, but, in the end, it still seemed like the proverbial “ugly, redheaded stepchild” of Kesha’s discography.

Perhaps being on some kind of autopilot in order to function contributed to a roteness in creating High Road that had to be obliterated for the making of Gag Order. And it is on the opening track, “Something to Believe In” that Kesha admits, “You never know that you need something to believe in when you know it all.” Prior to her epiphany in the summer of 2020 (the one that led to the inspiration behind “Eat the Acid”), Kesha likely felt she, in some sense, “knew it all” as she ignored the need for something “higher” to believe in—however cheesy that might sound. But when you exist in an industry that’s ultimately as nihilistic as the entertainment one, a girl could do well to find some spiritual guidance (after all, that’s what Madonna did).

And Kesha has apparently found hers through not just Ram Dass (whose words of wisdom are wielded on the “Ram Dass Interlude”), but through a fondness of creating her own “Jesus Prayers,” if you will, on this record. For the repetition of phrases is key on many of the tracks (in a manner that goes beyond mere chorus). On “Something to Believe In,” that phrase is the aforementioned, “You never know that you need something to believe in when you know it all.” Among two of the only divergent verses from the chorus is the concluding one that goes, “I’m so embarrassing/So used to abandoning myself/I can’t believe I’m still alive.” This referring to all the times she let herself be denigrated for the sake of “going along to get along,” as so many women feel they have to in order to “succeed.”

But her enlightenment about this and a plethora of other things arrives on the second track, “Eat the Acid,” a single that actually urges against eating the acid if “you don’t wanna be changed like it changed me” (this being the warning about LSD that Kesha’s mom, Pebe Sebert, gave to her). Funnily enough, it was Ram Dass who said, “I didn’t have one whiff of God until I took psychedelics.” Kesha appears to have found whatever “God” is without use of such drugs though. This much made clear as she imparts, “I searched for answers all my life/Dead in the dark, I saw a light/I am the one that I’ve been fighting the whole time/Hate has no place in the divine.” Even for someone who did her as wrong as Dr. Luke, her erstwhile producer/wannabe Svengali figure.

He being at least part of the reason for all the toxic thoughts swirling in her head, as elucidated on “Living In My Head.” This being a track that was given a precursor on “Something to Believe In,” during which Kesha addresses some of the racing thoughts in her mind. For example, “Mind’s been racing like a stallion/While I watch it all collapsing/Kill the chaos, find the balance/‘Round we go, around we go/Greatness just a shade of madness/Ego just a face of sadness/Pain is just part of the package/Around we go, ’round we go/I sit and watch the pieces fall/I don’t know who I am at all.” But that was only a small preview of the hell that is solipsism compared to “Living In My Head.” Wanting desperately to escape her flesh prison, Kesha laments, “Oh, I don’t wanna be here anymore/Stuck inside my head here anymore/Stuck inside my head here anymore/Mm, I don’t wanna be scared anymore.” Though it’s hard not to be with the climate and AI apocalypse being upon us. Those who remember Ashlee Simpson’s 2008 single “Outta My Head (Ay Ya Ya)” will also recognize similar sentiments in the lines, “Get me outta my head/Outta my head/Outta my head.” This is, to be sure, a more relevant desire than ever in the landscape of constant social media infection, wherein we’re all made to compare ourselves to others (whether we know them or not) on a daily basis. Olivia Rodrigo acknowledged something similar on “jealousy, jealousy” via the lyrics, “Comparison is killing me slowly I think, I think too much/‘Bout kids who don’t know me/I’m so sick of myself/I’d rather be, rather be/Anyone, anyone else.” Kesha, too, alludes to the detriment of comparing herself to others when she bemoans, “God, I hate myself/Got to stop comparing.”

By the time “Fine Line” rolls around, she’s started to achieve a more “I don’t give a fuck” state as she ruminates on the various fine lines between such things as “genius and crazy,” “sellin’ out and bein’ bought,” “hope and delusion” and “famous and bein’ forgot.” That “bein’ forgot” element likely a strong fear of Kesha’s as she was forced into silence amid her ongoing lawsuit against Dr. Luke that started in 2014. Which is part of why it took five years for her to put out Rainbow after the release of her sophomore album, Warrior, in 2012. Over the years of hardship and emotional rollercoastering, it seems Kesha learned one key lesson: “Only Love Can Save Us Now.” As the third single from the album, it marks the jubilant, “party girl” stylings she assured were no longer present on Gag Order. But hey, you can take the girl out of the party, but you can’t take the party out of the girl. Even if it’s a party with apocalyptic vibes (as Kesha once also said, “We’ll keep dancin’ till we die”—a similar assertion to Britney saying, “Keep on dancin’ till the world ends”). With regard to the frenetic, “all over the place” nature of the song, Kesha remarked, “I wanted ‘Only Love Can Save Us Now’ to sonically, lyrically, and emotionally reflect the severity of my mental pendulum swings. The world is so overwhelming sometimes. It requires a moment of surrender. The ludicrosity of life can make you crazy. If anything, IF ANYTHING, can save us, I believe only love can. This song is a desperate and angry prayer. A call to the light when all feels lost.”

There’s another call to the light on “All I Need Is You”—the “light,” in this case, being Kesha’s beloved cat, Mr. Peeps (and yes, on “The Drama,” she’s sure to note that in the next life she wants to come back as a house cat). After nearly losing him in 2022, the seed of the song sprung to life. Sampling Indian philosopher Osho at the beginning, he states, “Authentic love is beyond your control. And the most basic thing which is dangerous in you is the possibility of love. Because if you are possessed by love, you can go even against the whole world.” Yes, a woman possessed by unconditional love for her cat is not to be trifled with. Which is why the full quote from Osho is actually, “They were afraid of your authentic love, because authentic love is beyond their control. You are possessed by it. You are not the possessor, you are the possessed. And every society wants you to be in control. The society is afraid of your wild nature, it is afraid of your naturalness, so from the very beginning it starts cutting your wings.” That Kesha’s early career is founded on some notion of “wildness” that eventually caused her to be suppressed therefore feels only too fitting for this particular assessment.

Through the traumas and the tribulations, perhaps the only being she could truly trust was her cat. Thus, the potential of losing him prompts her to demand, “Tell me that you’ll live forever/‘Cause I’ve taken years for granted.” Speaking to the emotional dangers of opening one’s heart and becoming vulnerable—even to a cat—Kesha also adds, “Your love might break my heart harder than being alone.” As a song that’s representative of just how much the millennial generation has swapped out real children for pet children, Kesha insists, “You know parts of me nobody else will ever know” (cue the barrage of scenes featuring any cat’s voyeuristic antics) and “I don’t need much, but there’s one thing I can’t lose/All I need is you.” The Beatles might have said, “All you need is love,” but Kesha begs to differ here. All she needs is her cat to live forever. Or for it to at least outlive her à la Choupette.

Among the most experimental tracks on the record is “The Drama,” which feels like a sonic companion to the moody viscerality of “Only Love Can Save Us Now.” Opening with a serene tone that explores more “Living In My Head” themes with the lyrics, “There’s a violence in the silence/And it’s coming for me/Oh, the paranoia/It’s creeping closer/Swimming in my head like a Great White,” the temperament changes entirely just when you think you’ve got it pegged as some kind of ballad. So it is that at the thirty-nine second mark, the auditory landscape shifts entirely as Kesha sings, “Build me up to feel the fall/And fall in love to break my heart/I’m bored and I’m broken/I’m self-destroying/At least it’s something to do/Oh, the drama of it all.” “It all” referring to being, well, human. Which is, despite any modern “conveniences” still a fucking bitch. Co-written with Kurt Vile, Kesha throws another lyrical curveball into the fray of “The Drama” by incorporating The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated” (specifically, “In the next life, I wanna come back as a house cat, as a house cat/I wanna be sedated”). At moments giving LCD Soundsystem fare a run for its money, Kesha takes us back to the wonderfully weird experimentation of a song like “Rich White Straight Men.” At another point, Kesha notes, “I desperately wanna think people are good/But if you’d seen the things I’d seen/I don’t know if you would.” This echos another lyric she sings on “Fine Line”: “Don’t fucking call me a fighter/Don’t fucking call me a joke/You have no fucking idea/Trust me you’ll never know.” This idea that she’s seen horrors so indescribable they can’t actually be put into words is just the type of Hollywood cautionary tale to give any aspirant the chills. And yet, fame, no matter how frivolous, is a temptress that can’t be quelled.

Maybe that’s why Kesha segues this track into the “Ram Dass Interlude,” a reminder of how ridiculous it is to place any emphasis on such thoughts as, “Do you approve of me? Do you like me? Am I good enough? Have I achieved enough?” Ram Dass then assures, “And then thеre comes a period whеre you’ve just gone through enough. And the space starts, that little blue sky starts to develop. And you start to identify with the blue sky instead of the cloud.”

This is where Kesha’s at on “Too Far Gone.” And, while she might have found that space with the “little blue sky” Ram Dass was talking about, she can’t deny that there’s a part of her that will never come back. And that’s still difficult to reconcile. Hence, the lyrics, “Love comes with pain/I don’t know why/My whole life/Too far gone and I’ll never come back/Slipping through my fingers, damn, it’s going fast/Trying to find some meaning, something that lasts/Am I missing you or am I missing pieces of me? Am I missing you or am I missing who I used to be?” Part natural aspect of the “growing pains” that come with aging and part nostalgia for a seemingly simpler time, “Too Far Gone” also explores the theme of an “old self” being dead (“Think I killed the part of me that I like”) the way “Only Love Can Save Us Now” does via the line, “The bitch I was, she dead/Her grave desecrated.”

Regardless, Kesha declares she won’t go gentle into that good night on “Peace & Quiet.” Accordingly, the track bears no aural tones that connote “tranquility,” so much as another frenetic dance experiment (in the spirit of “Only Love Can Save Us Now” and “The Drama”) co-produced by Kesha, Rick Rubin and Hudson Mohawke. As she considers, “Maybe I should stop and take a breath/Maybe I’m not making any sense,” Kesha realizes, “But I would be lying if I said I could do peace and quiet/Loving me is running into a house that’s burning down, baby/Honestly, make it out alive and you’ll get the best of me/So get into it or get the fuck out.” At a point in her life where she has no room for anything but candor and bluntness, Kesha riffs on the chorus of The Cure’s “Friday I’m In Love” by chirping, “Monday, I’m praying/Tuesday, I’m heinous/Wednesday, I’m stable/Thursday, I’m up to something/Friday, I’m screaming/When I’m a-sleeping/Then by the weekend, I’ll need a restraining order.” So yeah, get into it or get the fuck out.

Kesha goes back to her “zen” place on the “Only Love Reprise,” wherein she enlists her niece, Luna, to deliver the verse, “This is reality, can’t you feel it? I am one with what I am. Everything in color, everything. You have to see the air, you can’t believe it.” Needless to say, she’s passing on her “Kesha-ness” quite easily not just to her “Animals,” but to the next generation of the Sebert family.

From that place of zen-ness comes the next song. And yes, in contrast to Ariana Grande demanding to “Love Me Harder,” Kesha, instead, goes in the opposite direction with “Hate Me Harder.” Yet, to use her “fine line” wisdom, there’s a fine line between love and hate. So maybe all “haters” are secretly obsessed (or they just happen to have a knack for the art of criticism). Either way, Kesha declares she can handle it as she sings, “I’ve graduated from caring about your opinions/Tell you the truth, babe I’ll never know that you existed…/So if hating me helps you love yourself/Do your worst, baby, gimme hell/Hate me harder, hate me harder/There’s nothing left that I haven’t heard/And I can take it, so make it hurt.” As such, she appears to want to alchemize the hate directed at her by radiating it back as love (besides, like she said on “Spaceship,” “Nothing is real. Love is everything. And I am nothing”). Plus, Kesha also seems to be of the Wildean belief, “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” So, as far as Kesha is concerned, let the haterade rain down if it keeps the commentary flowing.

While MARINA might have kicked off 2015’s Froot with a song called “Happy,” Kesha opts to conclude her album with a track named as such. After all, it’s the ultimate goal/achievement for anyone, famous or otherwise. And it seems that, at least for now, that’s what Kesha is. Or is striving to be. The sparse, yet rich instrumentation (which sounds a lot like The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life”) heightens the bittersweet tinge of lyrics like, “If you asked me then where I wanted to be/It looks something like this living out my wildest of dreams/But life sometimes ain’t always what it seems/If you ask me now/All I’ve wanted to be is happy.” That, too, is what Beyoncé claimed as her “aspiration in life” on “Pretty Hurts.”

More recently still, Lana Del Rey assured her fans at the 2023 Billboard Women in Music Awards that she wants them to know she’s happy. Then there was Billie Eilish naming an entire album Happier Than Ever after her breakup with Brandon “Q” Adams (a.k.a. 7:AMP). The bottom line is, famous people have been making it clear how much more challenging it can be to be “happy” while subjected to public scrutiny. Touching on the evolution of her mental state and perspective since becoming famous, Kesha ruminates, “I remember when I was little/Before I knew that anyone could be evil/These egos, some people, playing with my innocence like at a casino.” This, of course, reminds one of the fate that befell Britney when she was put under a conservatorship for little better reason than she was acting “hysterical.” Kesha, perhaps like Britney, has overcome that period of oppression, and whatever comes next, she wants to make one thing clear: “I refuse to be jaded/Still painting rainbows all over my face, oh/I’ve gotten used to the fall.” And with Gag Order, Kesha keeps falling upward.