Lady Gaga Inspired To Write By Her 'Fears And Monsters'

By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Sway Calloway (MTV.com)

Lady Gaga came onto the scene a champagne-swilling, fame-seeking disco queen in 2008. And while she could have possibly been just another flash in the pan, she soon evolved into a gutsy, unique pop star willing to almost die for her art - see her Video Music Awards and American Music Awards performances for proof of her dedication.

Now, with her sophomore release, The Fame Monster, Gaga is exorcising her demons - the very demons she gained on her journey to fame.

"I never really decided what I wanted to write about at all. I just felt this urgency to write about what I was going through - my fears and my monsters," she explained. "I had been so ambitious and dreaming for so long that I wasn't feeling very much."

Those fears and monsters pushed her to write the track "Speechless," a song about her fear of death - specifically her father's. "My mom called me and I was very depressed. I was on tour and I couldn't leave, so I went into the studio and I wrote this song 'Speechless,' and it's about these phone calls," she said. "My dad used to call me after he'd had a few drinks and I wouldn't know what to say. I was speechless and I just feared that I would lose him and I wouldn't be there.

"Once I got out on the road - when you're that vulnerable with your audience every night ... to me, being an artist is being private in public," she explained. "So I'm being private in public every night and all my monsters and my fears went leaping out of me and I just began to write."