I feel like this song (and the whole album) really embody what Schiller is trying to explicate in his text. The album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is all about these pulls towards following your sensual self and respecting your intellectual self, away from each other to the point where it could be identified as tearing you apart. However, the backdrop of all of this is something very beautiful, very focused, very harmonious, very intentionally well-designed by a person who is expressing his feelings. The album is 13 songs and 69 minutes long – the themes of opposing intentions coming together as a whole is represented even beyond the lyrics, mood and instrumentals of the content. MBDTF reconciles the opposing head and heart to find something that, while dark, makes people feel good and feel like they’re listening to something great.

Devil in a New Dress in particular describes the inner turmoil that one may feel in chasing something that both your head and your heart are telling you is right. The lyrics describe a love that is unarguably romantic, but the nature of this love is negative. Kanye’s head knows it’s wrong, but it is also very convinced that beyond any moral standard, it is definitely worth it. Meanwhile, the instrumental represents the warmth to the love. In spite of the content of it being morally ambiguous (to say the least), the backdrop to the song is not cold at all. The feeling of this love has a high temperature and our senses indicate that it is very substantive and easy to get lost in. By elucidating the nature of this emotional and intellectual harmonization, Kanye is revealing to his audience how it feels, how one thinks about going through treacherous, romantic love. It is both a cautionary tale and a glorification regarding doing something wrong that you feel and know is right, and what one ultimately takes away from it is entirely dependent on the individual.