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"Poker Face" is an ode to bisexuality.
Bild: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP/dpa
Since 2008, "Poker Face" has been considered one of the biggest pop hits of the 2000s - but what Lady Gaga is really singing in it remained a mystery for a long time. Here's what's behind it.
Since 2008, Lady Gaga has created one of the most famous pop songs of the 2000s with her hit "Poker Face". But until now, most of us have probably got the song completely wrong.
The first Reddit posts appeared 13 years ago, in which users claimed that she was singing "Puh Puh Puh Poker Face, Puh Puh Fuck Her Face".
"I study audio engineering and one of our last lectures was about song lyrics that no one seems to understand properly," wrote one user. "Our professor asked if anyone heard anything unusual about the chorus of 'Poker Face'. Everyone said no. He played it back and slowed it down. The actual words are, 'Puh Puh Puh Poker Face, Puh Puh FUCK HER FACE'. Listen closely, I promise it's there," he further wrote.
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The post has received 208 comments, and there have been a steady stream of new entries in the last two years. For example this one: "I know this is a 10 year old post, but I just saw a video of her live in Vegas this year singing a stripped down jazz piano version of Poker Face, and she's clearly singing 'Fuck Her Face'."
A theory that many also agree with: "I've seen the videos where she's clearly saying 'Fuck Her Face', but if you watch the original music video and pay attention to her lips, it pretty clearly looks like she's just saying 'Poker Face'. I'm hesitant to believe there aren't two versions and the clean version was the one played by radio stations," said another user.
In 2009, Lady Gaga spoke about the song at an iHeartRadio event and explained that few US radio stations had censored the line correctly, except KIIS FM - the only station that asked her to censor the lyrics because they feared she would "say something bad in it", according to Gaga. And: "KIIS FM was the only station that was actually right," the musician continues.
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In 2023, the singer finally cleared up the speculation at her "Jazz & Piano Residency" in Las Vegas: she sang the explicit version unmistakably on the piano. In addition to the lyrics, Gaga also revealed the true meaning of the song. "Poker Face" is an ode to bisexuality: it's about lying in bed with men and secretly thinking about women at the same time.
