The song documents the pop super star’s experiences with anti-psychotic medication and Gaga described the accompanying short film as “the poetry of pain”.
The heavily symbolic video begins with a masked Gaga awaking in the middle of a desert, lying next to a broken bicycle and pomegranates.
She follows a mysterious figure in black riding a horse, who leads her to a village populated with people in colourful robes.
911’s beat kicks in before another change in scenery. A crying Gaga lies injured in the middle of a car accident on an urban street, as figures from earlier in the music video attempt to save her life.
“I don’t want to die,” the singer begs. The short film was directed by Tarsem Singh, known for his work on REM’s classic Losing My Religion music video and for 2000 feature film The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez.
Gaga, 34, said: “This short film is very personal to me, my experience with mental health and the way reality and dreams can interconnect to form heroes within us and all around us.”
The Oscar and Grammy-winning singer, who received MTV’s inaugural Tricon Award at last month’s VMAs, said Singh had shared a 25-year-old idea with her because “my life story spoke so much to him”.
She added: “Finally, thank you little monsters. I’m awake now, I can see you, I can feel you, thank you for believing in me when I was very afraid. Something that was once my real life everyday is now a film, a true story that is now the past and not the present. It’s the poetry of pain.”
911 features on Gaga’s most recent album, Chromatica, which arrived in May.
