reviews

I’ll be dissecting Joanne song by song every day until November, which will bring a monster month of daily music and comics content with it.

Something that gets lost in all of Laga Gaga’s glamorous pop and newly- found country leanings is that one of her major influences is Bruce Springsteen, but you can hear it loud and clear on “Come To Mama.”

She discussed Bruce’s influence during the lead-up to Born This Way, which made sense given the highway sensibilities of the record plus Clarence Clemmons appearing on the Bruce-esque “Edge of Glory.

“My father gave me, I believe it was for Christmas, a Bruce Springsteen songbook for the piano and on it was ‘Thunder Road,’ which is my favorite Bruce Springsteen song. My dad said, ‘If you learn how to play this song we will take out a loan for a grand piano, a baby grand.’

So I remember it was the hardest thing for me. I was playing these huge (classical) pieces, like 15 pages long, … and then there was this Bruce Springsteen song. I opened up the book and there was like chords, guitar chords. I was so confused. I didn’t understand it, so I just started to read it and eventually, eventually I got it down.”

While “Come To Mama” doesn’t have the fine detail of “Thunder Road,” it has the populist aim of Born To Run and Springsteen’s penchant for slick thievery from his own deep list of influences that includes doo wop and 60s girl groups.

Come to mama. Tell me who hurt ya
There’s gonna be no future If we don’t figure this out

Oh, come tomorrow who are you gonna follow?
There’s gonna be no future If we don’t figure this out

The chorus of “Come to Mama” is deeply, deeply Springsteen influenced, with a girl group shuffle full of triplets and boozy sax playing beneath it. Sonically, this is how “You and I” should have sounded like on the record. “Mama” lends itself even better to the 80s rock dressing with a few simple violations of its key signature – a major sixth chord wedged into the verse and the chorus ending on a major-to-minor transition on the fourth.

All of the bombast of the production makes it easy to overlook just how clumsy the verses of this song are. It took me a week of listening before I began to cotton on, and then I had to reading the lyrics to figure out just what was happening. Here’s a sample.

Dude in a lab coat and a man of God (Come onto mama, come on, mama)
Fought over prisms and a forty-day flood (Come onto mama, come on, mama)
Well, I say rainbows did more than they’ve ever done
So why do we gotta fight over ideas?
We’re talkin’ the same old shit after all of these years

If you dig through all of the sax blasts, hand clap snares, and shoutback lyrics, you realize that verse is about if the biblical flood was literal and whether rainbows are magical or not. I mean, this Lady does have a song called “Highway Unicorn,” but this is a little far even for her.

Without knowing exactly what Father John Misty contributed to this track, I’m going to go ahead and blame him for all the awkward parts. “Come To Mama” fits with “Sinner’s Prayer” in having some of the least Gaga-sounded lyrics of all Gaga songs, which are again uncharacteristically nonsensical. The awkward equivocation in the verses doesn’t vaguely match the sharp choruses, which carry Gaga’s recognizable message of positivity and acceptance.

Here’s the thing – it doesn’t really matter. Unlike “Sinner’s Prayer,” which doesn’t have a lot going for it other than its lyrics, this song has everything going for it to the point that Lady Gaga could have just scatted the verses and it would have the exact same impact.

Yeah, the Springsteen sound sticks out like a sore thumb on the record to this point, but the next song softens the blow. Plus, I honestly believe this is what Gaga would sound like today if she was fronting some bar band like mine, and in that respect it’s right at home with Joanne‘s themes of authentic self.

Another Lady Gaga shot from the New York Times Style Mag.

I’ll be dissecting Joanne song by song every day until November, which will bring a monster month of daily music and comics content with it.

I’ll admit, I’ve been somewhat dreading making it past “Million Reasons” in this track-by-track dissection. Maybe anything would seem like a comedown after such a phenomenal song, but I feel like the back third of Joanne is unremarkable and not as fully-baked compared to what came before.

Maybe Joanne should have been another 8-track EP masterpiece?

“Sinner’s Prayer” is the most alt-country of all the tracks on Joanne – even moreso than the title track. Where “Joanne” was an all-acoustic ballad that almost defied genre, “Sinner’s Prayer” has several signature elements, like a low, tremolo-fueled baritone riff and the simplistic kick-on-every-beat drums.

This lightweight song was co-written with Father John Misty. Gaga’s past co-writes haven’t had the feel of the feel of the co-writer overtaking Gaga’s own sound, but here that’s the case. The narrative is fractured, the first verse fights with itself, and a cheerful, major-key chorus and bridge that seem lifted from another tune entirely.

That misplaced, low-key chorus might be the best thing about the song. It shows off Gaga’s chesty, alto vocals clearer than any previous song in her repertoire. Unfortunately, there’s barely a hook in there, aside from the “good as, good as gold.” A final refrain takes the chorus up an octave to a more typical Gaga location, but other than selling the “gold” hook a bit harder it’s forgettable.

Hear my sinner’s prayer
I am what I am
And I don’t wanna break the heart of any other man but you, but you
Hear my sinner’s prayer
It’s the only one I know
It sure as hell don’t rhyme, but it’s as good as, good as, good as, good as gold

If some of the rest of the song was an introspective piece that matched up better with the concept of a repentant but unapologetic lover this could have been a subtle antidote to the whore complex Lady Gaga returned to on “Diamond Heart” and “John Wayne.

I’ll be dissecting Joanne song by song every day until November, when I debut some much bigger daily content!

“A-YO” is a fun, radio-ready clapper that might have done better over the summer months when its nonsense chorus could have been playing at every packed bar of vacationing college students. It’s got a steady bounce to it that feels just right for a smokey dance floor.

The first thing I noticed about the song is that it feels to me like a clap back at some of the newer acts that have co-opted Gaga’s place on the radio as dance pop stars, like Icona Pop and Charli XCX. Gaga has never gone for those trebly, hand-clap kinds of drum loops before, but they tend to mark the songs of those other stars. Here she uses them, but shamelessly sheds all of her typical synths for guitar rock instead (pushing it even more into Charli’s glossy territory).

One unmissable aspect of “A-YO” is the country tinge to Gaga’s clean, up-front vocal. Listen to the first line – How the “I” stays an “ah,” never closing to the dipthong “E”; the throaty A in “wait”; the drawling “aw” in “all”; and, later, the “uh” in other. It’s not a world different from the affect she puts on in “You & I,” but where that barroom stomp got dressed up in a Queen sample to glam it up, “A-YO” is much closer to a rock song.

She’s also pushing the country theme in the lyrics, as she name checks Marlboros, “tearin’ up” the gravel, “city gravy,” and more down South turns of phrase. The vocal twang and vocabulary at first seems like a strange combination with the modern rock guitar solos strewn throughout the song. It’s one of her most guitar-driven tracks of all time – I especially dig the adventurous mid-neck solo.

Once the chorus hits everything becomes obvious: this is Gaga’s take on a line-dance. It’s classic Gaga, especially with its rapid-fire chorus, but all of the production choices push it away from “PokerFace” and nudges it closer to “Achy Breaky Heart.”

It’s an interesting move from Lady Gaga. It isn’t as if one twangy song will get her played on Country radio, but there are some aspects of it clearly calculated for success. It’s a dancefloor cut that isn’t just for dance clubs. The bright, clear vocal takes her out of her clubland weirdo schtick and puts her in a realm of comparison with different artists. Yet, elements of the schtick remain intact, like the repeated words and phrases.

I’m actually surprised this wasn’t selected as the lead single, especially since it’s [spoiler alert!] a much better portent for the unusual remainder of the LP than the more disco-tinged “Perfect Illusion.” But, I’ll have more to say about that tomorrow.

Finally, if you had any doubts about the country thing, here she is playing it on guitar while wearing a cowboy hat and an embroidered shirt.