Joanne

Joanne was Gaga's aunt, who was just 19 when she died of lupus in 1974, before the singer was born. She explained to People magazine why she titled her fifth studio album after her father's late sister. "I always wanted to be a good girl," she said. "And Joanne was such a good girl. "But I have such a rebellious spirit, and my father was always very angry. He drank because of his sister's death. I was trying to understand him through making this record, and in that, also trying to understand why I love men that are cowboys." "I'm figuring out all of those relationships in my life through the music, and going very deeply into it. But in a totally beautiful way," Gaga added. "It's not a sad album. It's an album that is very revealing of me as a woman."

Gaga told The Sunday Times about the background of this acoustic ballad. "My whole life, I never understood why my father was so sad, drank so much or was wild. I thought it was my fault, and it was painful for the family. I'd witness year after year that feeling of loss within my father and grandparents. There's something so powerful and deep to lose a child."

Joanne is Gaga's middle name too, and as she was named after her late aunt, the singer has used her as a muse throughout her career. She explained to the New York Times how the death of her father's sister informed the musical direction of the album. "This album, it doesn't lean necessarily in a particular direction, which is why the album title is Joanne. This is my middle name. This is the middle and the center of me and Joanne, my father's sister who died when she was 19. That was the year that I decided I really was gonna go for it." "I used to leave my apartment and I just had my white boots on and my little shorts and a T-shirt and I would just walk down the street on the Lower East Side totally free," Gaga continued. "And I had the whole world - the whole unknown of music - and where it could take me ahead of me. And this song ['Joanne'] in a lot of ways I realized even today is me looking back on Joanne and saying 'Where do you think you're going?' You know, I had no idea where I was going."