Over the course of her career, Ariana Grande has used her music to draw a series of compelling extended metaphors and similes. She compares a long-term relationship to an extremely long drive. She indicates that the pain one feels after having too much sex is akin to the pain one feels after too much spinning. She likens a man to a Fenty Beauty kit. She insinuates that she is like Santa, except in an erotic sense. And on her latest album, Thank U, Next, Ariana spins an entire song around an unlikely subject: the American space program.
Ariana has long demonstrated a fascination with both space and the space program that verges on sexual. When I first learned that she’d be releasing a song called “NASA” (it popped up in her “Breathin’” video), I assumed that Ariana — perpetually horny, even for her own planet — would be using the song to compare herself to the universe, and her man to NASA. He would be exploring every inch of her, he’d be penetrating her atmosphere, etc. etc. I certainly did not anticipate that Ariana would be using the song to express a series of trenchant sociopolitical opinions.
At the outset of “NASA,” Ariana tells a timeworn tale of a woman who just needs some freakin’ space from her man. It’s not that she wants to break up, exactly — it’s just that she wants to spend a night by herself because she’s a very famous person with a lot of demands on her time, okay? “I’d rather be alone tonight / You can say ‘I love you’ through the phone tonight,” sings Ariana in the first verse. “Really don’t wanna be in your arms tonight / I’ll just use my covers to stay warm tonight.” She goes on in a similar vein — there’s nothing wrong, please calm down, please don’t check on her when she gets home, she just wants to chill. Being a fellow extremely famous woman, this all makes a lot of sense to me. Very shortly thereafter, though, the song’s logic begins to gently crumble, like a fresh pastry hurled into zero gravity.
In the pre-chorus, Ariana explains that she’s requesting this solo time not only to reflect, but to miss her lover more acutely. “I can’t really miss you if I’m with you / And when I miss you, it’ll change the way I kiss you,” she sings. Again, this all checks out. But then she goes on: “Baby, you know time apart is beneficial / It’s like I’m the universe and you’ll be N-A-S-A.”
Here, Ariana is suggesting that she and her man should take time apart, much like … the universe and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I don’t know how to interpret this in any other way: Ariana wants … NASA … to take time away from the universe?
The chorus complicates this already thorny suggestion even further. I’ll paste it here in full:
Give you the whole world, I’ma need space
I’ma need space, I’ma, I’ma need
You know I’m a star; space, I’ma need space
I’ma need space, I’ma, I’ma need space (N-A-S-A)
Give you the whole world, I’ma need space
I’ma need space, I’ma, I’ma need
You know I’m a star; space, I’ma need space
I’ma need space, I’ma, I’ma need space (N-A-S-A)
Let’s unpack this part. Within the canon of this song, Ariana is now both the universe and a star. And as a star (literally; metaphorically), she needs space (from her man; in order to survive in the universe [even though she is the universe (…it’s fine)]). From a purely scientific standpoint, this tracks; the stars and the universe are made up of the same dark matter and energy, and I’ve now reached the outer limits of my science education. Where things begin to break down, however, is when Ariana advocates, over and over again, that it would be “beneficial” for NASA and the universe to “take time apart.” Ariana has long indicated that she is, politically, quite progressive. Paired with her obsession with the planet Jupiter, those politics would indicate that Ariana is pro space travel. However, if we are to take her at her word in “NASA,” Ariana wants to halt all space travel.
Much like Ariana, Donald Trump has sent some major mixed messages about his own feelings on space travel. In early 2017, he spontaneously told NASA he would give them “unlimited funding” to go to Mars, despite the fact that this would be completely impossible in his given time frame of “right now.” “Honestly, how cool is NASA?” he added, not incorrectly. But more recently, he’s instructed NASA to end direct funding for the International Space Station by 2025, then insinuated that NASA would do a shittier job of launching rockets than Elon Musk. Sometimes he talks about wanting to send people to the moon, but one gets the familiar sense that he has absolutely no fucking idea what he’s talking about. All of this is to say: Does Ariana Grande inadvertently agree with Trump’s “plans” for the space program? Does she really think that we should be taking some time away from exploring the universe and redirecting our energy elsewhere, specifically toward ourselves?
As a longtime fan of Ariana who has spent a lot of time thinking about the minutiae of her songs — for example, I have recently wondered whether the “Ari Chan!” refrain hidden in “Bad Idea” is a reference to her obsession with anime Nintendo Switch games and barbecue grilled fingers — I have to believe that Ariana Grande’s plans for America’s space program do not align with Donald Trump’s. There is something else she’s trying to say here. If we can’t figure it out, it is a failure of our imagination, and NOT Ariana Grande and her team of lyricists, who were swilling Champagne for months while writing this album.
Let’s look closely at “NASA’s” bridge: “You don’t wanna leave me, but I’m tryna self-discover / Keep me in your orbit and you know you’ll drag me under,” sings Ariana, over and over. As a reminder, the “you” in question is NASA — in Ariana’s estimation, NASA does not want to leave the universe, but the universe is trying to figure some shit out. The next line suggests a sort of sadomasochistic, psychosexual relationship between NASA and the universe: If NASA doesn’t let the universe go, the universe is going to be … dragged under! Dragged under what, you ask? I’m not sure — you’ll recall that earlier I exhausted all of my scientific knowledge. However, I think we can all agree that the universe being “dragged under” anything would be absolutely catastrophic.
The most likely explanation for all of this is that Ariana Grande knows something we don’t about the universe’s capacity for implosion. Please do not scoff — you’ll recall that she is the only person who has ever brought the earth to orgasm. You’ll also recall that, earlier this week, NASA tweeted at Ariana in a curiously explicit condonation of her song’s message, suggesting that it, too, understands the imminent international security risk. NASA, if you’re not too busy going to Mars, please heed Ariana’s prescient warning: If you don’t leave the universe for a brief moment, just to let it recalibrate, the universe is going to be dragged under something, and we are all going to die.
