Lady Gaga & Elton John Subvert Fan Expectations In Electronic Dance Collab ‘Sine From Above’

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As if Lady Gaga’s new album wasn’t going to be iconic enough, she enlisted the help of living legend Elton John for ‘Sine from Above.’

After a long, seemingly endless wait, Chromatica is finally here! Lady Gaga’s delayed sixth studio album was released on May 29, giving all the Little Monsters all the Gaga goodness they wanted – and more! In fact, Chromatica might boast what arguably is her most iconic collaboration yet (and that’s saying something, considering she also has a song with Beyonce.) Yes, Gaga teamed up with the music legend, Sir Elton John, for “SINE from Above.” The result was something fans didn’t necessarily expect, especially coming from Elton. Although the Grammy-winning singer has made history with rock ballads, he dived into unfamiliar territory — AKA, hyper-charged electronic dance music — and fans loved the risk-taking.

“I THOUGHT IT’S JUST GONNA BE THE TYPICAL PIANO-BASED BALLAD. YES SIR ELTON YOU BETTER SLAY! I SWEAR IT’S GONNA BE THE FIRST SONG I’LL PLAY THE MOMENT CHROMATICA GETS RELEASED,” one fan tweeted, and another listener raved over the clever wordplay: These are SINE waves that @ladygaga and @eltonofficial used as reference for #SinefromAbove. Sine waves are used as measures of electrical activity of your heart. That lyric: “and it healed my heart, heard a sine”, IS SMART.” The end of the track especially caught listeners off-guard, since it did a 180 and blasted into all-out EDM. Elton’s alias, The Rocket Man, has never been more appropriate.

Ahead of Chromatica’s release, Gaga dished on how this collaboration with her “mentor” came about. “[Elton] was on this massive world tour,” Lady Gaga told Zane Lowe of Apple Music’s Beats 1. “And the fact that he even made a song with me on the album was a super joy, but actually I’ve kept everything on lock and I’m super private about my music and I don’t play it for everyone. I keep it to myself and I’m in so much trouble now. My gay dads are going to be so mad. …He’s been my mentor for a long time. I mean, he’s always challenged me to keep my head above water and it’s something that I always appreciate is that he knows when I’m down. He just does. And he knows because I hide, because I never want anyone to see me when I’m like that and [Gaga collaborator] BloodPop and everyone that I worked on this record with including Morgan, when we were doing the interludes or the beginning of the end, right, of the album, I would just burst into tears or have a panic attack or a trauma response. They saw me go through so much. I hide.”

“But Elton’s always really challenged me to take care of my artistry and to really take care of myself,” added Gaga. “And I really, really honor that about him. He is so, so uniquely special. And I cannot tell you how instrumental in my life he’s been to showing me that you can go all the way in life, you can go all the way and… decades and decades of a career and be authentic and be you and do good things in the world and take care of yourself and be there. He’s such an inspiration.”

As for the inspiration behind the track’s name, Gaga dished on it. “And the end, the last act of the album is a song called ‘Sine From Above,’ as you know, that I did with Elton, and a song called ‘Babylon.’ And we use a ‘Sine From Above,’ S-I-N-E, because it’s a sound wave. It’s that sound, sine, from above is what healed me to be able to dance my way out of this album, singing ‘Babylon,’ a song about gossip, and something that used to run my life and make me feel so small and so chained and dance my way with the chains on. I’m wearing them right now. And I wear them proudly that I feel free.”