I remember the first time I was introduced to Lady Gaga. She was performing on American Idol, a show my wife loved despite me. As a compromise, she would record the show on our DVR, and watch the following day while I prepared dinner. Although I was never actively watching, I would catch snippets of things going on in the show that I would sometimes find appalling ("Queen Week" comes to mind), certain of the inevitable train wreck the show's producers must have been hoping for. Being a fan of music in general allowed me to take in moments from time to time, and Lady Gaga's performance was one of those moments.
Her performance was quirky and odd, but in an artistic way, and it reminded me a lot of some of Madonna's performances from the early 90s. To borrow from American Idol's most (in)famous alum, Simon Cowell, "It was memorable." "Forgettable" was always the one thing you didn't want to be in his eyes.
And then Lady Gaga was everywhere. There was no escaping "Poker Face." I remember telling my wife that rather than hearing "can't read my, can't read my poker face," I kept hearing "cutie pie, cutie pie, poker face." Naturally, my version made no sense whatsoever, but me being me, I kept insisting to my children that "cutie pie" is what she was saying to the point that they believed me, prompting my wife to correct the record.
When my son was three and my daughter was five, my wife sought out the official video and played it for them on her phone. At first, they would gleefully belt out my "cutie pie" version of the lyrics (something we have plenty of videos of), as the studio cut still wasn't clear enough for them to hear the difference. This prompted my wife to search YouTube for alternate versions one day while I was at work, believing perhaps an acoustic version would contain less distortion. This is what she found:
Chris Daughtry's acoustic version was a revelation for my children. His version was crisp, and powerful, and cleared up any misunderstandings about lyrics created by their father. It didn't take anything away from the original, but rather added to it, giving it greater depth. My children were so excited in fact, the moment I arrived home from work, my five year old daughter raced up to me and exclaimed, "Look Daddy! It's The Boy Lady Gaga!"
Of course it is.
