accepting Born This Way

My first exposure to Lady Gaga’s song, Born This Way, was on the Grammy’s this year. Back then it bored me and I completely tuned it out. I’m not a “little monster” or a big Gaga fan. I plan on buying a couple of her songs, but for the most part I don’t follow her. I’m pretty neutral about her, so my not liking the song wasn’t a big deal.

But last week Al Yankovic released a parody, Perform This Way. I read his account of the whole ordeal, jumping through hoops to end up getting turned down. (And ultimately okayed.) I gave his song a listen and actually ended up liking it!

Weird Al’s explanation that he planned to donate all sales to the Human Rights Campaign because the original “was such an earnest human rights anthem” also got me more intrigued in Lady Gaga’s song. ‘An anthem?’ I thought. ‘I don’t remember hearing that in the lyrics.’ (That I totally didn’t listen to.)

In a weird coincidence, this week on Glee they performed Born This Way. I really enjoyed their rendition of it too. (It was such a fun episode! And yay, Kurt’s back!!)

I couldn’t figure out where the disconnect came for me. Usually I don’t like songs on first hearing them (Selena Gomez? *grin*) (mostly because I have to be in the right mood to listen to different types of music, but that’s not important) but I never completely write them off and consider them a waste of my time.

Today I went back to view the performance at the Grammy’s, the only time I had ever heard Gaga singing the song. I have to say, I don’t know if it was done on purpose, but the sound mixing was horrible. I could barely hear Gaga’s voice. The times I did hear her though, she didn’t sound all that great. I have seen other live performances of hers, and she’d never sounded that bad to me. But then that might be because she wasn’t dancing around the stage so much like at the Grammy’s. She had more energy to devote to singing.

Finally, finally, I watched her music video with her studio recording, and it sounded like Lady Gaga to me. Yay! Don’t know that I’ll buy the song though. But Weird Al’s and Glee’s versions are definitely on my to-buy list!

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