The Monster Ball Tour
Lady Gaga titled her debut album “The Fame” before she’d even got a taste of it. Now that the singer, born Stefani Germanotta, is one of the biggest pop sensations in the world, she’s even more fascinated with the drama of stardom. Onstage last night in St. Paul, Minnesota, Gaga debuted a new song called “Living on the Radio” that appears to be a lullaby directed to herself. The song is a reminder to trudge through the loneliness of life on the road (and life at the top) because there’s no high like hearing her own songs broadcast to millions over the airwaves, which she describes on the track as her “dream.”
“When there’s nowhere to go, and all your friends are gone, and you’ve only got your daddy to call/You gonna be all right, honey/’Cause your songs are on the radio,” Lady Gaga sings over a few spare piano chords. At the end of the two-and-a-half-minute tune, she tells the crowd, “I hope you like that — that came straight from my soul to you.”
Perhaps Gaga’s soul has been spending some quality time with Elton John. Both “Living on the Radio” and the other new ballad destined for her follow-up to “The Fame,” titled “You and I”, channel the lilting, emotional melodies of his ‘70s catalog. Lady Gaga even debuted “You and I” at John’s White Tie & Tiara Ball AIDS benefit in June, and performed her track “Speechless,” blended with his “Your Song,” alongside the English singer/songwriter at the Grammy Awards earlier this year.
On the title track of “The Fame,” a cheeky skewering of the plasticity of the star scene, Lady Gaga sings of having nothing but a “taste for champagne and endless fortune.” She revisits those luxuries on “Living on the Radio,” admitting she’s down to pop a bottle. Still, such pleasures would be hollow without the joy she gets from her music (” ‘Cause you sure would miss all the caviar, the champagne, and the sold-out shows/You’re gonna be all right, honey, ’cause your songs are on the radio”).
“There certainly are things that are difficult to deal with, but the kind of fame I cherish is the relationship I have with my fans, which is so pure and so wonderful,” Lady Gaga said during her appearance on the “Today” show last month.
She made sure to toss a reference to her die-hard devotees in “Living on the Radio,” singing, “Baby you’ve got a friend, and so many little monsters, yeah/You’re livin’ on, livin’ on the radio.” Once the M-word arrived during her performance last night, the crowd — which remained reverently quiet as Gaga worked her way through the new song — burst into cheers.
Lady Gaga has been working on her as-yet-untitled new album on the road during her Monster Ball tour. In July, she told a crowd that she’d just penned a “number-one record in Cleveland” as her show rolled through Ohio. The singer has said she’ll release the LP in early 2011, and is considering announcing its title on New Year’s Eve.