“Every heartbreak makes it hard to keep the faith.” – Lady Gaga
In some of her guises (or disguises), Lady Gaga is a true inheritor of the Dolly Parton legacy, just like Whitney Houston (who died because she couldn’t slow down).
Dolly and Gaga both stood and stand around 5 feet tall in their bare feet. Such connections between artists are somehow not meaningless, and are worth noting (and studying) (or I wouldn’t notice, note and study it). (Chekhov studied his actors very carefully from behind the scenes.)
As Lester Bangs would’ve told us all too, were he here at the moment (but I’m sure he’s somewhere else), the attached musical performance is, without any doubt whatsoever at all, one of the greatest American musical performances of the twenty-first century: and probably of all time.
In this single performance, Lady Gaga joins the late Elvis, and opera singers, at the highest of high heights. Wow!
Notice that she doesn’t dance around while singing. That’s because you can’t dance when you’re singing this good.
But notice how she acts. Her gestures, expressions, movements are part of why this is such great a performance.
But this performance should be studied three ways. One: listening to just the music. Two: watching the video while listening to the music. Three: watching the video without the music.
You should also study, for sure, her beautiful backup singer, especially her eyes.
(And listen to the crowd.)
People like Lady Gaga can’t operate, at all, without people like her backup singer: and the crowd (the small crowd, that is).
Kafka wrote brilliantly (but every unpublished word that fell from his midnight pen was brilliant) about how Sancho Panza and Dapple are just as important as Don Quixote and Rocinante – if not more so.
This performance begins with these words (her eyes hidden in shadow beneath her cowboy hat): “My name is Lady Gaga. Tonight if you could just call me Joanne.”
Lady Gaga just had her first baby at the age of 40!
Congratulations, Gaga and Joanne, at every level I can possibly think of and imagine!
Dr. Dale Williams Barrigar
