Ariana Grande, Kacey Musgraves, and SZA couldn’t sound more different. But on their new and upcoming albums, all three women are singing about the same thing: Saturn. Sure, space is very intriguing, and there may be no celestial body that’s more photogenic than Saturn and its trademark rings. But there’s something deeper here than casual planetary admiration.

SZA’s “Saturn,” released in late February, has lyrics about dreaming of the cosmic entity breaking her for the better. In the first verse of her lead single “Deeper Well,” a song about letting bad people and bad habits go, Musgraves is concerned with the same planet, singing, “My Saturn has returned.” And Grande has a track off her new album, released on March 8, titled “Saturn Returns Interlude” featuring a voiceover about waking up and changing your life.

They’re singing about the astrological phenomenon known as a Saturn return.

A Saturn return is the concept that every 30 or so years in a person’s life, Saturn comes back to the place in the sky that it was on the day that person was born. For a lot of people, 30 also happens to be a time when a huge jump in adulthood happens. And depending on how much you believe in astrology, a Saturn return could have a lot or a little to do with that.

As someone who dabbles in horoscopes and loves pop music, I wanted to get a better understanding of why my favorite female singers are so deeply obsessed with the way a planet orbits. I spoke with author and astrologer Jake Register about why a Saturn return seems to be a rough time for everyone, if all this stuff is just baloney, and whether you can really be a pop star today if you’re not singing about Saturn.

Jake, what is a “Saturn return?” When someone says Saturn return, what does that mean?

A Saturn return happens when you’re between 27 and 29 years old. It’s when Saturn returns to the same part of the same sign it was in in your birth chart. I was born at the end of 1996. I have Saturn in Aries. When Saturn gets back to Aries in like a year and a half to two years, that’s gonna be my Saturn return.

It’s one of the most critical cycles in astrology and, at a very basic level, your first Saturn return is like, “Oh my God, you’re a real grown-up.” It’s all about development and maturity.

I think when you hear about these things — development, maturity, growing up — and how people who are into astrology talk about the term, it seems like a Saturn return is not exactly a fun time. I am not really that excited about things like lessons.

Saturn is the taskmaster of the zodiac. It rules responsibility and if there’s anything to do with Saturn, she’s gonna make you work for it. You don’t have everything sorted out when you’re 26 years old, and once you hit 27, 28, or 29 — that Saturn return age — you start realizing that even if you thought you had your shit together, you actually don’t.

So when I was 26, I absolutely did not have anything together. But I don’t think all 26-year-olds are the same. Some were way more responsible than me.

A Saturn return is like evolving, but you’ve got to work.

If you’ve been paying your dues, being responsible, taking care of business, then a Saturn return can actually be a really positive thing where it’s a time of recognition, promotions, upward mobility, because Saturn return is all about making sure you are on the right path. If you’re already on the right path, then Saturn’s just going to reinforce that and give you more momentum. That’s usually most reflected with relationships and career.

And if you’re not …

Well, this is around the age where people are like, “Oh my god, this is a deadbeat job.”

And Saturn’s like, “Okay, if you want more, I’ll give you more. Here are tons of opportunities that you have to work through. And it’s gonna be a pain in the ass, but it’s going to take you somewhere closer to where you want to be.”

It’s the same with relationships. This is a time where you need to figure out how to connect with other people, what kind of relationship you want. You need to cut out toxic relationships. With Saturn returns, the best thing you could possibly do is keep it real with yourself.

Why a lot of people experience that as a difficult and negative thing is because nobody has their entire life together. Certainly not when you’re 27 years old. But if you are, then it’s all about recognition and promotion.

Well, that’s awfully nice of Saturn to do that.

Ultimately it’s a good thing, because it’s a test of how sturdy the foundation of your life is. It’s going to shake shit up.

Are you kind of surprised that our pop girlies are having Saturn returns and thinking about them?

My beloved, messy Ariana. I think for her, it’s definitely applying to relationships. So I’m interested in giving a listen to what she has to say about her Saturn return.

I really like Kacey Musgraves and she has Saturn in Sagittarius — I looked at the Saturn part of her chart earlier. Sagittarius is like a young, wild, and free kind of sign. So even if Saturn’s up in there, there’s more flexibility and optimism. I wouldn’t say it’s innate, but Sagittarius is an optimistic Jupiter-ruled sign. Ari has Saturn in Pisces. Emotional. What a mess. That poor girl and all those poor boys she’s interacted with.

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But, I think the popularity is a mixture of things. These girls were probably in that prime age group of people who were really getting into astrology from 2017 to 2020. [Grande is 30, Musgraves is 35, SZA is 34.]

That popularity is a fascinating thing. Obviously, I am fully invested in astrology, I think that it’s real. I think that Saturn returns are a real thing and they’re really tough to deal with. And I think if you are the kind of person that wants to sing songs, and creatively express yourself about your Saturn return, go for it.

Kacey Musgraves’s first song off her new album is “Deeper Well.” The lyrics are pretty clear. She opens with “My Saturn has returned” and then sings about how she’s finally leaving people and habits that are wasting her time and dragging her down, like waking and baking (singing, “Roll out of bed, hit the gravity bong that I made”).

That’s a great mindset to have during a Saturn return. Because, ultimately, Saturn wants strength and stability and structure. She has a great approach to it.

Astrology can be used kind of like a roadmap. It can tell you what to expect. So when you’re in that age, and you see things kind of falling apart in different parts of your life, but you’re aware of Saturn returns, then you realize that there is like a grander purpose to this.

Kacey is a Leo. Ariana is a Cancer. SZA is a Scorpio. Does your astrological sign have any bearing on what your Saturn return will be like? From what you’re telling me, it sounds like it’s more personal than that.

A Saturn return is not so much dependent on your sun sign, but more so on your rising sign because the house that Saturn is in — that’s where it’s going to tell you the most, like what difficulties you’ll be facing. Some people have Saturn in the first house which represents a lot of things, but your physical body is one of them. And that could be like a health journey or something where you’re improving the way you feel about your body, doing an extreme makeover or overhaul of how you take care of your body. The seventh house is relationships. If you have Saturn in the seventh house, that Saturn return is when a lot of divorces happen.

I have Saturn in the eighth house. Taxes. Hello!

The jump from 26 to 30 is huge when it comes to adulthood. And I guess it’s a question of, which came first? Does Saturn help explain those growing pains? What would you say to a skeptic?

I would say that the distinction between people who are under 30 and over 30 is really, really clear in our society. Pretty much everybody would agree with that. There are difficulties in your life in that age period, and you know, if Saturn returning to the same spot it was in is a coincidence, purely fine. But you know, we look at the stars, what’s happening up there is reflected down here in mundane life. So Saturn returns are just one of the many cycles that you can see happening.

If you want to get into the nitty-gritty of it, Saturn returns are just one part of a full Saturn cycle. When you’re born, seven years later Saturn is square. It’s three signs away, or four signs away. That’s difficult and then that’s when you’re seven, 22, 37 — every 14 to 15 years.

The Saturn square happens between the Saturn opposition and the Saturn return and is a time of challenges. Saturn opposition is that mid-life crisis, like, “Oh my god here are ALL the things I want to do and all this room for growth in my life,” and Saturn square is like, “Okay, but first you HAVE to take care of this, there are obligations and responsibilities that need to be done.”

It’s an urgent, busy-work kind of transit, like an unpaid internship, but [you have to use] that experience to get a real, paying job that’s higher up. Your Saturn opposition is when Saturn is in the opposite sign. Your first one is when you’re 14 or 15 and you’re feeling the weight of the world.

Okay, I see your point. Being 14 absolutely sucks.

And then the next Saturn opposition happens when you’re in your early 40s, which is a midlife crisis, you know? It’s like the end of the cycle and the beginning of a cycle.

It’s a time of perspective. It’s a time of needing to be flexible, needing to be realistic, because a lot of people like to blame Saturn returns or Mercury retrograde or any astrological thing when everything is going wrong.

If your first Saturn return happens when you’re going to turn 30, then the next one happens at around 60. What is the second Saturn return like? Is it different than the first one?

It’s a very similar vibe. Where if you really fucked up your first Saturn return and you didn’t become a real grown-up, then this is like, okay, can you finally be fully functioning? Like, let’s make sure you have all your shit together.

Okay, but like, you’re 60. That 401(k) is done.

You got one foot out the door already. But seriously, for a lot of people, that could be when they’re at the height of their career or shortly after the height of their career. And they’re starting to really enjoy the rewards, like right before they’re about to retire.

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I just looked at my chart. My Saturn is in Libra. But I am [redacted] years old so Saturn already came and hurt me.

Oh, well, you’re about to go through your Saturn opposition — that 40s, mid-life crisis kind of deal that I mentioned. So that’s going to be a time of seeing empty parts of your life where growth could occur.

Even though we make a big deal about Saturn returns, it seems like that’s a little bit of a misunderstanding. Saturn is always there. She’s always watching and waiting. Like full on stalker behavior.

Saturn is like that mean teacher that everybody had in middle school who was just awful and it’s like she had eyes in the back of her head. Or his head — you have a very specific one. That’s Saturn. She, or he, has business that they have to attend to, and you better pay attention and if you can’t keep up then, you know, see you later.