Lady Gaga’s song “Alice” is the explosive, desperate, and vital opening mission of her 2020 album, Chromatica. The song’s core meaning is a raw and powerful plea for healing. It uses the “Alice in Wonderland” story as a profound metaphor for a real-life mental health struggle. The singer is “falling down the hole” of her own mind, a place of pain and disconnection, and she is desperately searching for “Wonderland.” In this song, “Wonderland” is not a place of madness; it is a metaphor for “home,” a place of peace, and the dance floor of Chromatica itself. The song is her cry to be “set free” from the prison of her own trauma, and she identifies music as the only “maestro” that can lead her there.
This is the second track on the album, but the first proper song. It follows the orchestral “Chromatica I,” which acts as an overture, like the opening credits to a film. “Alice” is the “inciting incident.” It is not a gentle introduction; it is a violent “fall.” The song begins in media res—in the middle of the crisis. The listener is immediately plunged into the singer’s state of panic and confusion. This track is the “problem” that the entire Chromatica album sets out to solve. It is the sound of the “battle” beginning.
“My Name Isn’t Alice”
The song’s opening declaration is perhaps its most important line. The singer clarifies that she is not the fictional, storybook character Alice. This is a critical distinction that grounds the entire album in reality. Lady Gaga, an artist famous for building characters, personas, and “auras,” is stripping that away. She is telling the listener that this is not a fairy tale. The “fall” is not metaphorical; it is a real descent into mental distress. The “screaming” she describes is not artistic performance; it is the sound of real, lived-in pain.
This line is a powerful statement of autobiography. The singer is Stefani Germanotta, a real person who is suffering. By separating herself from the character of Alice, she is making her search for “Wonderland” a genuine quest for survival, not a whimsical adventure. This “fall” is not a choice. It is a state of being “stuck.” She is not exploring a fantasy world; she is trapped in a real-world nightmare, one that takes place entirely inside her own head. This is the “battle for your life” that she references later in the album, and this song is the first, desperate shot fired in that war.
This is a profound shift from her earlier work. Where albums like ARTPOP were about living inside the performance, “Alice” is about the real person underneath the performance, who is crying out for help. She is done with the “aura.” She is now showing the raw, unfiltered reality of the pain that the “aura” was built to protect. The search for “Wonderland” is a search for her real self, a self free from this pain.
“Stuck in My Mind”: The Rabbit Hole as Trauma
The song masterfully re-frames the “rabbit hole” from the Alice in Wonderland story. In the original tale, the hole is a portal to an external, fantasy world. In Lady Gaga’s song, the “hole” is internal. It is the prison of her own mind. The first verse is a terrifyingly accurate description of dissociation and a panic attack. The singer asks where her body has gone, stating she is “stuck in her mind.” This is the classic feeling of being disconnected from oneself, of watching your life from the outside.
The “hole” is a state of deep depression or PTSD. The pre-chorus, with its primal “Oh ma-ma-ma” chants, sounds like a cry for a “mother” or a source of comfort. It is the sound of pure, unfiltered distress. She is “falling down” into this dark place, a place where she is “tired of screaming.” This is not a new feeling. The second verse confirms this is a chronic, recurring cycle. She is “sick and tired of waking up” in this state of panic, “screaming at the top of my lungs.”
This is the “sickness” she is fighting. It is an internal “MAYHEM,” a chaos that lives inside her. The “rabbit hole” is her own trauma, a place of “poison” that she has fallen into. The “Wonderland” she seeks is therefore not a place of “madness,” as it is in the book. “Wonderland” is the opposite. It is the “antidote.” It is a place of sanity, safety, and peace.
The Sound of the Chase
The song’s production, by Axwell, BloodPop®, and others, is not a coincidence. It is the literal, sonic embodiment of the song’s meaning. The track is a pounding, relentless, 1990s-era house song. The beat is not calming or gentle; it is a frantic, driving, and propulsive “chase.” It is the sound of “looking” for Wonderland. It is the sound of her heart pounding as she “falls.” The music doesn’t “heal” her; it is the sound of her desperate journey to find healing.
The tempo is fast, the bassline is relentless, and the synth stabs are sharp. The vocal “Ah, ah, ah” chants that punctuate the track sound like the singer is “catching her breath” as she runs, as if she is being chased. The “Set me free” cries sound distant, like an echo from deep inside the “hole” she is trapped in. The entire song is designed to create a sense of urgency, of a desperate race against time. The music itself is the “rabbit” she is chasing, the only thing that moves fast enough to pull her out of the “hole.”
This is a signature element of the Chromatica album. The “battle” is fought on the “dance floor.” The music is not a backdrop; it is the weapon. Here, the music is her vehicle. It is the only thing that can match the speed of her racing, anxious mind. She cannot think her way out of the “hole,” she must dance her way out. The song is not just about a “trip”; the song is the “trip.”
What is “Wonderland”?
In Lady Gaga’s version of the story, “Wonderland” is the cure. The post-chorus makes this crystal clear. The chant of “Take me home” is paired directly with “Take me to Wonderland.” “Wonderland” and “home” are the same thing. This is the ultimate goal. For an artist who has spent her life on the road, as a self-described “gypsy,” the concept of “home” is complex. Here, she is defining it. “Home” is not a physical place. It is a state of being. It is Chromatica.
Chromatica, the “planet” she has created for the album, is “Wonderland.” It is the “place” in her mind where she can be free. It is the “dance floor” where she can process her pain. When she is begging to be taken to “Wonderland,” she is begging to be taken to this state of healing, this “home” that she has had to build for herself inside the music. The Alice in Wonderland story is about a girl who just wants to get home, to wake up from the nightmare. Lady Gaga’s song is about a woman who is already in a nightmare (her trauma) and needs to find a new home (Chromatica) to escape.
“Maestro, Play Me Your Symphony”
If “Wonderland” is the destination, the second verse provides the map. The singer, “sick and tired” of her pain, makes a profound and total surrender. She cries out, “Maestro, play me your symphony.” This is the mission statement for the entire album. She is giving up control, admitting that she cannot “free her mind” on her own. She is putting her faith entirely in the hands of the “Maestro,” the “DJ.”
The “Maestro” is music itself. It is the producer. It is Lady Gaga as the songwriter. It is the “God” that she finds in the “sound.” This is her form of prayer. She is not just “stuck in her mind”; she has “left herself behind,” a further sign of her deep disconnection. The only thing that can retrieve her, the only thing that can “pull her out of this alive,” is the music.
Her desperation is absolute. “I will listen to anything,” she sings. This is a total surrender. She is not being picky. She is not in control. She is broken, in the “hole,” and she is placing her trust in the “Maestro” to “take her on a trip” and “free her mind.” The rest of the Chromatica album is that “symphony.” The songs that follow, from “Stupid Love” to “Rain on Me” to “Babylon,” are the “trip” that the DJ is playing to “set her free.”
This makes “Alice” the perfect, most honest beginning to the Chromatica story. It is a song of pure, unadulterated need. It is a raw, unflinching look at the “before” picture. It is the sound of the bottom, the “down, down, down” of the fall. The song is a question: “Could you pull me out of this alive?” The entire album that follows is the answer.