I wrote the below review for, hah, my Pitchfork application a few months ago, because reviewing a song that hasn’t even been recorded sounded like fun. But I genuinely feel it’s her best - certainly most soulful - song yet!
Download the Montreal bootleg of the song here via gagafrontrow.net - and follow my personal Tumblr, where it was originally posted!
Appropriately first played live at Elton John’s White Tie and Tiara Ball back in June, You and I is the sole track Lady Gaga’s debuted from her upcoming album, to be released in early 2011. For those solely familiar with her singles-as-events, hearing Gaga recreate ’70s AOR may be alternately baffling or, to the rockist holdouts, her most impressive work yet - but more than anything, it represents her exponential, easily overlooked growth as a songwriter. Before-she-was-famous YouTube videos show a young then-Stefani Germanotta playing the traditionally earnest female singer-songwriter, but piano ballads like the tepid Brown Eyes misplaced her sincerity amongst the overall narcissism of debut album The Fame. However, the vast improvement of The Fame Monster brought with it the first crack in Lady Gaga’s steely masquerade - the Oasis/Queen hybrid Speechless was a genuinely moving ode to her alcoholic father.
Devoid of even a trace of electropop, You and I is the most revealing depiction of Gaga’s psyche to date. In a recent Rolling Stone feature interview, she attributes her entire fame to the strength she gained after breaking up with an ex-boyfriend, a metal drummer she’s been fixated on ever since. You and I sees her finally ready to address their relationship directly, depicting their reunion after the lonely “two years since I let you go”. Instead of her trademark self-empowerment, she’s at her most submissive - singing “I’d give up anything again to be your baby doll”, she allows herself to be swept off her feet. Yet it’s also the most musically passionate she’s ever been - the heels-on-piano-keys solo and her climactic belting of the song’s title redeem the unashamed retro vibe. With all the whiskey-soaked glam imagery and none of the forceful come-ons that’ve seen her crowned the most fascinating artist in pop, it is - ironically, for a style of music built on romance - Lady Gaga’s first true love song.
Though her appearance changes so frequently that it barely even constitutes “phases”, there’s something symbolic in her current, strangely ordinary wardrobe of sunglasses, denim and, significantly, boyfriend-sized Mötley Crüe shirts. Having established a career out of artifice in the best sense possible, Lady Gaga seems to have rediscovered Stefani Germanotta, the inner, doe-eyed romantic. The resulting intimacy fits her like a glove. Provided she’s not crippled by the hype, her next album should offer what she’s been promising all along. 2011 can’t come soon enough.
