The Lady Flies!

February 5, 2017 —

I lost people on this, I know.

But I knew, I knew my girl would nail it. On the top of my last story, I listed what Entertainment Tonight said the set list would be. I was sad that my three favorites, Gaga’ songs I identify with the most from her catalog weren’t on the list, but that list was way wrong! I wanted three songs: Born This Way, Million Reasons and Bad Romance; only I didn’t have much hope to hear Million Reasons because it’s a slow song. Still, whatever the set list turned out to be, I knew she was going to nail it.

The start was crazy cool! I loved her recitation, in a sweet little voice, “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” How’s that for a political statement? Well done. It would serve us well to remember that.

Lady Gaga started, as the set list said, with Poker Face (after a tiny fake out of I’m on the Edge). Playing to her Houston audience, she emphasized the first line in the first verse, “I wanna hold ‘em like they do in Texas please”, with a playful pause. Showing shat she was made of, she did acrobatics, while singing. Can you imagine if she had dropped the microphone? Scary! But it looked fun, like something little girls all over the country are pretending to do by jumping off furniture! Daddy, make me a wire line that hangs from my ceiling. Okay, focus, you’re not five, Whisper. The song was a great start, then, surprise! She followed with my first Whisper-wants song, Born This Way, and with that, I knew Entertainment Tonight was wrong. I knew my others could come, and I got so happy. Gaga faked them out!

Next we got two old ones, Telephone and Just Dance. There was tons of dancing in those, a couple changes in her jacket. The dancing was great. I liked the choreography. It was like what I did in my day, almost exactly. I would have copied every move, I tell you, every move. No doubt, this will be my work out for the next few months, just like her HBO special was in 2011. I’ll have the dances down by next weekend. And I liked that Gaga was still the main focus, even with tons of people involved. Then, as if the show really was for me, I got my second of my wants: Million Reasons. Bucking the thought that the song was too slow, she sang most of it, most while seated playing at a piano. I love the lyrics of this song. She emphasized my most-favorite-to-sing lyric in the song: I bow down to pray; I try to make the worse seem better…. By then I was in tears. I know, silly. Would I get my third song? And the answer was yes. She closed with Bad Romance, although I’m pretty sure I didn’t hear the lyric “I’m a free bitch, baby”, a great line in that song; TV, PC, I guess, and I understand that.

In my opinion, she did the best of her fast songs, and, with Million Reasons, paid tribute to her newer direction, a more singer-songwriter based Lady Gaga. Mind you, I listen to Million Reasons often. I think it has that Lana del Rey vibe I like so much. And there’s something so powerful to me about the message, a message through lyrics. “I’ve got a hundred million reasons to walk away”, a lyric reflecting my feelings almost every day, a feeling I feel here when it’s quiet, a feeling I get when people leave over my taste and views not being like theirs, in my own life where I fight for literally everything, the feeling I had to state my excitement over my anticipation for this show in a half-hearted way because everyone’s opinion is better, more valuable, than mine.

Funny, as I was writing this story, the above paragraph in particular, the commercials were playing. An Audi commercial came on. It wasn’t at all like the flashy comical commercials that are normal for the Superbowl. Instead, it was a recitation of rhetorical questions from a father to his daughter. Mind you, I’m writing these from memory, but they began with things like “should I tell my daughter that her grandfather is better than her grandmother” and concluded with “should I tell her she’s automatically looked at as less than every man she will ever meet”? I’m paraphrasing, so forgive me if the words aren’t exactly as I quote, but I’m conveying the tenor of the commercial. And after the commercial’s last question — automatically looked at as less than — I stopped writing and looked at my other computer screen, thinking … what the what? Then the tagline came on, the father saying he wants a world where he can tell his daughter she can be anything she wants to be, that she is equal, and the written non-audible words, “Audi, committed to equal pay.”

As I sit here writing, remembering Gaga, her acrobatics, her singing while being acrobatic, her amazing talent, thinking nobody could do a show better, that this will be something that might not ever be matched, that the NFL did well in choosing her as a solo performer (a rare thing), that she did well to prove the doubters wrong, I was struck with the thought that my audience would think meh, wishing the show had featured a rock band, Guns ‘n’ Roses, AC/DC, Van Halen, the list is long, music of the kind my audience finds to be the only redeemable talent in music. Real music, I think it’s called. Sure, that kind of music is good. And I do like it too. But, similar to the Audi commercial, my favorite of the Superbowl commercials by the way, I really hope one day, music taste aside, people will recognize talent where they see it. You see, we women like our music … a bit girlie… sometimes anyway. I really don’t understand why women can cross into men’s music as far as something women consider desirable and possessing of redeemable talent, but men crossing into women’s music in that same way, really appreciating a performance, as women do rock music is so difficult. Perhaps Audi should put that in their commercial as one of their questions: should I tell my daughter that only male guitar players make real music?

Gaga…. Her song, Million Reasons, with its cry out that she has a million reasons to quit the show, a hundred million reasons to walk away… concludes with the lyric I just need one good one to stay. I know I can’t tell people what and who has talent, that people will and do believe only the music they like, old rock they have heard a thousand times, is any good. And sure, I like that, but I like lots of other music too. I like Lady Gaga. I liked this show. I think it might just be good enough to do that thing I believe in so much, to lead by example, an example that something like Gaga is talent, talent for all, even rocker men. See? I’m still being half-hearted. Years of listening to what I should and shouldn’t like does that to me. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll sing that song, that line from Million Reasons, really strongly now, because she gave me a really good reason to stay and keep doing what I do, even if … sometimes, I might just might turn a few heads and minds away from me. Do it, do it, Whisper…. Say what you think, what you really think, no matter what people think. Come on.

Gaga? She said “we’re here to make you feel good.” She did exactly that. For me. For me, she not only flew it into the “park”, uh stadium, she flew it out of the stadium, the best Superbowl half-time I’ve ever seen, just like I knew it would be, … Bitches!

Superbowl half-time show link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txXwg712zw4