“Teeth” is a track by American singer Lady Gaga from The Fame Monster (2009)—her second major commercial release and third EP. Written by Gaga, Taja Riley, Pete Wyoming Bender, and Teddy Riley, and produced by Gaga and Teddy Riley, it is an oral-theme “perverse march” that critics and fans have long read as a gospel-flavored ode to rough sex, biting, and sadomasochistic charge. For kink- and BDSM-media listeners, “Teeth” sits at the intersection of pop spectacle and dominance-play lyric: show me your teeth as both sexual demand and demand for truth. The song peaked at number 107 on the UK Singles Chart, drew mixed reviews, became a live showpiece on The Monster Ball Tour and at Coachella 2017, and later dragged Riley into a public songwriting-credit lawsuit.
Background, Credits, and What the Song Is About
Writing credits list Lady Gaga, Taja Riley, Pete Wyoming Bender, and Teddy Riley; production is credited to Gaga and Teddy Riley. Descriptions of the track pile up: a “perverse march,” a “gospel ode” to sadomasochism, and—per Bradley Stern of MuuMuse—something that feels “part musical, part country, and a little bit tribal in spots.” Popjustice called it a “wobbly, stompy, bouncy marching song” that opens with the blunt line “don’t want no money, just want your sex” and later chants “show me your teeth!” Lyrically, Gaga asks a lover to bare teeth for her. MusicOMH noted another voice in the background intoning “strange messages, which may or may not revolve around dentistry.” Music Times pointed to the “skank-y” horns as the audible fingerprint of Riley’s production hand.
In an MTV interview, Gaga framed the double meaning herself. On one level the song is juvenile-sexual and provocative—oral sex as surface reading. On another, the “monster” is fear of the truth: “Show me your teeth” means “tell me the truth.” She said that for a long time she had replaced sex with the truth. That split—bite as sex act, bite as honesty test—is exactly why the track lands on BDSM-adjacent playlists: dominance, vulnerability, and the eroticization of being made to open your mouth.
In 2013, Teddy Riley sued Gaga for US$500,000 and punitive damages over songwriting credits, claiming he was not given the 25 percent of royalties he had been promised. He also alleged that his daughter Taja “committed fraud and copyright abuse by earning a deal with EMI for her role in the song,” and tried to sue her as well, asserting that her participation, authorship, and ownership claims on “Teeth” were “false and untrue.” Music Times noted that Teddy Riley’s work on “Teeth” was his only contribution to The Fame Monster and called the track the EP’s “smallest.”
Reception: Curveball, Worst Track, or Deep-Cut Classic
Critical response was mixed. Some writers praised the song; others named it the album’s weakest cut. Gaga’s vocal delivery was frequently compared to Christina Aguilera. Slant Magazine’s Sal Cinquemani wrote that “Teeth” “sounds like something from Michael Jackson’s last studio album as sung by Christina Aguilera,” and added that the fact the closest she gets to another human being “involves being tied up and bitten is revealing”—a line that still reads as pure kink-pop subtext. Blogcritics’ Clayton Perry grouped “Teeth” with “Monster” and “Telephone” as tracks that “thump harder than anything she’s released thus far.” Tony Hardy, writing for Consequence of Sound, called it a “repetitive chant which gets its point across in the first verse, rendering the rest of it almost redundant.”
Nick Levine of Digital Spy called “Teeth” “the most sonically intriguing thing GaGa’s put her name to, an ode to rough sex conducted over an intense, tribal production that recalls Cher’s ‘Half Breed’ and Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Tusk.’” MusicOMH labeled it the album’s “biggest curveball”: it “doesn’t really go anywhere, the chorus getting mixed in with the verses,” yet remains “a compellingly dancey listen” and a possible indicator of where she was heading next. MuuMuse’s Bradley Stern described a “stomping, hoot-and-holler-worthy chant-along” that invites listeners to “cut loose and … well, sink their teeth into the music,” adding that it was an odd choice to end the album but a “surefire crowd pleaser for live shows.” Popjustice scored it six out of eight and said it “foray[ed] into Black Betty territory.” PopMatters’ Evan Sawdey called it Gaga’s “most sonically adventurous song yet.” Nick Hyman of Under the Radar ranked it the worst track on the album. Vulture included lyrics from “Teeth” in its “Best Lines” portal. In 2017, Billboard ranked “Teeth” number six on its list of the 100 greatest “deep cuts” in twenty-first-century pop, arguing that what makes the song remarkable “isn’t its implied carnality… but the seething aggression lurking not far below the song’s surface.”
Live Performances and Other Appearances
Gaga performed “Teeth” throughout The Monster Ball Tour (2009–2011). The Riverfront Times called her January 2010 St. Louis performance “fantastic”—“a fierce Broadway strut full of vamps, vigor and choreographed dancing which recalled Chicago.” Days later at Radio City Music Hall she delivered an “angry version,” hunched in an animalistic crouch, surrounded by a predatory pack of dancers while ferocious wolf imagery played; she grabbed her crotch and “snarled” the lyrics. Dan Aquilante of the New York Post noted that those gestures “didn’t seem all that inappropriate.” At Lollapalooza in August 2010 she performed a “concert version” with guitar solos between repetitions of “Show me your teeth!” During some shows she told crowds she never lip-syncs; reviewing an April 2011 Montreal date, Mike Lepage called the reminder “needless,” writing that nobody would charge “this canary-haired dynamo” with faking it—“you can’t shut the Gaga up.” In 2017 she revived the song in her Coachella Festival setlist.
Outside the tour circuit, Discovery Channel used “Teeth” to promote Shark Week programming in 2011—an almost too-on-the-nose commercial marriage of bite and brand. Target Corporation sold a “singing” toothbrush that played two-minute excerpts of both “Born This Way” and “Teeth,” folding the oral-sex / dentistry double entendre into retail merchandise.
Credits Snapshot
Credits adapted from the liner notes of The Fame Monster: Lady Gaga — vocals, songwriter, producer, background vocals; Pete Wyoming Bender — songwriter; Teddy Riley — producer, songwriter; Taja Riley — songwriter; Dave Russell — recording at Record Plant, Los Angeles, and audio mixing at Mason Sound, North Hollywood; Mike Daley — recording assistant. Chart-wise, the UK Singles Chart peak of 107 is the clearest single ranking attached to the track in the source record.
For bdsmwild readers, “Teeth” is not a dungeon anthem in the leather-bar sense—it is pop-monster SM: bite play, rough-sex ode, mental bondage via truth-telling, and a live persona that snarls, crouches, and demands teeth. Whether you come for the Riley horns, the Monster Ball strut, or the Billboard deep-cut ranking, the song keeps the same invitation: open your mouth, show what you are, and mean it.
