One Song - Lady Gaga's "Poker Face"

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Today’s song is a sure bet — no bluffin’ here. Join us this week on One Song as Diallo and LUXXURY dive deep into Lady Gaga’s career-breaking 2008 hit “Poker Face.” They discuss her early performance art collaborations with DJ Lady Starlight, explore how "Poker Face" almost became a track for the Pussycat Dolls, and finally tackle the burning question: Is Lady Gaga really dropping uncensored f-bombs? Get to Insurify.com to compare car insurance quotes in real-time and start saving today! Have you ever dreamed of starting a business? Go to tailorbrands.com/podcast35 for 35% off all Tailor Brands services today. Songs Discussed: “Poker Face” - Lady Gaga “SOS” - Rihanna “SexyBack” - Justin Timberlake “Gimme More” - Britney Spears “I’m In Miami Trick” - LMFAO “What Is Love” - Haddaway “Just Dance” - Lady Gaga “Girls, Girls, Girls” - Mötley Crüe “Boys Boys Boys” - Lady Gaga “The Final Countdown” - Europe “Step Up” - Darin “Whine Up” - Kat DeLuna ft. Elephant Man “Pretty Vacant” - Sex Pistols “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” - Judas Priest “Enter Sandman” - Metallica “Ready to Uff” - Uffie “Ma Baker” - Boney M. “Live At Dominoes” - The Avalanches “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” - Kendrick Lamar “Long Title: Do I Have To Do This All Over Again?” - The Monkees “Street” - Egor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Luxury. Today's song comes from an artist that has been a perpetual A-lister for the last 17 years. I know, that's crazy. She still feels like she's fresh and new, but she's like a vet at this point. We're just getting old. Yeah, it could be it too. Over the years, she's accumulated a long list of awards and accolades for her work as a singer, songwriter, and actor. Triple Threat. She's worked with the likes of Bruno Mars, Tony Bennett, and Walking Phoenix. But today, we're going to talk about a song that sets the stage for her career to come. This song was one of two consecutive number one hits from her synthesizer, Drenched debut album.

Drenched. Exactly. Wet with Sins. You almost could say it rained on her. It went on to top the charts in 19 other countries, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time and winning her the Grammy for best dance recording. If you can't read, my, my, my face. It's one song, and that song is Poker Face by Lady Guy.

I did not see that coming. Visit BetMDM, Casino, and, Check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor. Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. I'm actor-writer-director and sometimes DJ Diallo-Rill-Rood. And I'm producer DJ songwriter. and musicologist luxury, aka the guy who whispers, Interpolation.

And if you want to watch one song, please go to our YouTube channel and watch this full episode with all its beautiful visuals. And while you're there, please like and subscribe. It's a luxury. Pokerface came out in 2008. Can you paint a picture of what was going on in music culture in 2008? Well, it's kind of funny to talk about it now

because it's like been this way since then. But in that moment, it had been just a couple years that we were hearing dance beats and dance tempos and dance rhythms. It's sort of the rise of what becomes like EDM is beginning, you know. It was after Daepunk brings out the pyramid. It was after the guys on Jersey Shore made it okay for all white kids to listen to dance music.

And on the pop charts specifically, we have like Rihanna's SOS is 2006. And that starts this new trend of us kind of getting these like four on the floor, you know, 120 BPM, 80s since having pop songs. Absolutely. They've been in more of the underground as we've discussed on any other episodes. But this is when it's starting to be in the top 40 with not the top. five. Totally. I think in 2006, I think it is, like, you know, Justin Timberlakes, you know, sexy back, exactly. That one, sexy back came out of nowhere. Suddenly the black eyepts are

ascendant. That's right. Acon has a whole run of 120 BPM songs. Brittany does give me more in 2007. In 2008, we have LMFAO, gets there for a single comes out. I'm in Miami trick. All of these artists are making essentially dance music with lyrics. Right. And this is a new thing, because as we've discussed on many other episodes, America up until the early 2000s was still living in the era post disco demolition in 1979, when dance music was sort of anathema. I actually even blame Night at the Roxbury

because even as dance music started to take off with little bits and waves, like it was too easy to do that dance with your head talking to the side. And just once again, it was not as mean spirit as disco sucks, but it was still like that's somebody else's music. That particular usage is implying that it's bridge and tunnels or it's for like other people. It's not for the sophisticates that we all are, the rest of us. But of course, dance music never goes away. And in 2008, it's starting to be back on the pop charts.

Speaking of four on the floor dance music, what did you think of poker face at the time, given everything that was going on in your life? Right. So personally speaking, this was right in the heart of my being a co-writer in Los Angeles. I just moved here. And my job was to write pop hits. And I was trying to bring into it in retrospect. way too much sophistication.

I remember when this song came out and was an instant hit, as we will be discussing in the next hour, I remember thinking, oh, that's all you have to do? Of course, the simplistic, that's kind of like the engineer or the technician mentality

about something. It's Caldron of Envy, part three, a little bit, because it's not easy to do. It's hard to do the simple things. And as we get into the stems, you'll hear there isn't a lot that is going on,

but that's not because it's in any way a deficient song. because that was all that was required. So much was going on in terms of Lady Gaga's delivery, her vocals, her talent as a singer and deliverer of a message, and her visuals and everything else about her that Red One's production in this song and their co-write together really is the perfect marriage and sort of encapsulates what pop music can and should be in many ways.

And just to be clear, like, the song to me is amazing. As a producer, I've come to learn and appreciate simplicity. It's taken me a long time because I think my natural, instinct, as is true on this show, as everyone working in the studio right now is looking at me going, we know. You think a lot. No, I'm kind of an overcomplicator. Let's just say this. No, but simplicity is not my instinct. But no, for sure, like the lesson that I learned personally as I was trying to bring all of my music, you know, knowledge and like, you know, trying to bring back things that I liked from my like disco history and funk and synth pop and everything in my own way,

in a overly complicated way. What I learned was simplicity really rules supreme, especially in pop. It's more effective. It's not like simplicity in a lesser sense of like not trying hard. It's more like it is actually harder to be effective with the simplicity of a song like this. So one of the big lessons I learned was that like the instrumental is not nearly as important in pop music as the vocal, the top line, the melody and the person. Pop music is all about the person. It's all about kind of having a connection, I think, to the singer and their story.

Yeah. And the music is just like a vehicle for that. Yeah. If I can weigh in too. I think that when I'm writing a script, I think that if I can accomplish the same thing with fewer words, that's always better. Yes. And when I listen to music, I like when they leave a space in between the notes just so that, you know, you can appreciate what's left in. Yeah.

It's that whole thing about like what you take out makes what you leave in that much bigger. The edit is so crucial. Yeah. Less is more. Well, it's interesting because you're talking about what's going on in your life during this period. In this period of my life, I am DJing a very big club about 1,500 people. through the door every single Friday and Saturday. That sounds intimidating.

It was big. Which is this? It was a big club. It was Boulevard 3. It was on sunset. I was also doing... This is absolutely where I met my wife. We might talk about that a little bit later in this episode and in therapy. Which this is, by the way, as we've talked about many times.

This show is definitely therapy. No, I bring it up because... So I actually remember the very first time Lady Gaga popped on my radar. I'll never forget it was like a girl. She had written this is like at a time when people still wrote things down on napkins. even though we had cell phone. She wrote it down on napkin. She put Just Dance by Lady Gaga.

I was like, yeah, I think I've heard of that. Maybe it was on YouTube. Okay, that's fine. I'll play it. But I remember when the sound came through the speakers with those like monster sense and we're going to talk about the sense on the song. Those monster sense sounded so good coming out of like big club speakers.

In a club environment, it just hit. Yeah. Well, we now know for Lady Gaga, like literally with an album title, like art pop. and pop art, that's the milieu she works in, and fame. It's sort of an art project about fame. And we know that there are these sort of conceptual underpinnings to what she's doing. Can you tell me a little bit about how she got started in the Lower East Side of New York City?

Yeah, well, her whole life, really, she's been a musician and a performer and a New Yorker. So she's born on the Upper East Side. She starts playing the piano when she turns four. Okay, pretty soon she's playing die bars and oven nights. At the age of 14, I have a 15-year-old and a 13-year-old. I am not letting them play some die bar. I'm sorry. Actually, now when I think about it, though,

they are part of this program that's a little bit like School of Rock, and anytime they happen to put on a performance, they usually perform at the Mint, which is kind of a die bar. But it's like two in the afternoon probably. Yeah, it's like at 1 p.m. It's not like during real business hours.

It's not like, it's kind of crazy to think of. And also, wasn't George Benson also performing in these nightclubs at like eight, nine years old? I never made that connection. Shut these bars down, you guys. If we don't need... Who are the patrons who are going to these clubs? There are people of age who can play an instrument, believe it or not.

Y'all are weird. Stop going to these bars. Stop patronizing them. But here's news to anyone who's been living under the rock. When it's time to go to college, she doesn't go very far. She goes to Tisch. She does not surprise me. Because to me...

NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Yes. She is the ultimate Tisch graduate. Like if I were to like craft in a lab, like the ultimate Tisch graduate, it would be Lady Gaga. Yeah. I mean, she does everything. She does it all well. She's incredibly talented across multi-hyphenate. And she really is coming at her music from like an artistic point of view.

But a year or so before her big break, a few different people come into her life and they help her hone her craft. One of these people is a DJ by the name of Lady Starlight. Let's talk about Lady Starlight. One of the unsung heroes of our episode. Yes. Is the nom de plume or nom de DJ of Ms. Colleen Martin. She named herself after a sweet song, the sweet being one. one of the great glam rock bands of all time. And the song was called Lady Starlight.

We're going to talk about glam rock. We're going to talk about all that sleazy 70 stuff in a minute. Let's talk about it. All right. So Ms. Starlight is 11 years older than young Stephanie Germanata. Okay. And she was a DJ. She got her start in the New York underground scene in the early aughts.

She was bringing together classic rock, glam and metal records, like in a DJ, like dancing contacts, right? And this is the same era that kind of across town, you know, in Brooklyn, you've got like Club Lux where they're kind of doing a similar thing, but the sound is the electro-clash thing. Yes. This sort of, which I love. Resurgence of sleazy 70sness with some 80s synths over here and some guitars over there is a big part of New York and that electro-clash scene, which is so New Yorkie, has Fisher Spooner, which was also like a very, they had like a very big performance art element to what they were doing. And I think that's really relevant to the story. It matters

that we're in New York again in another moment, not unlike Blondie 20 years earlier, go to our Maps episode. Like we've mentioned a few times how the cross-pollinization in New York of people and sounds and eras and fashion and style. Fisher, spooner, peaches, all that stuff. Right. The legacy of Andy Warhol and the factory in the 60s continues onward. And so this is sort of like another generation finding it, but sort of steering it in terms of Lady Gaga and Lady Starlight in this moment, they're steering it in this re-exploration or reinvigoration of this mid-70s, sleazy rock moment called Glamor. Can we just say, like, if you see early performances of Lady Gaga and Lady Starlight, they are dressed like American peril models.

You know what I mean? This is the look of the moment. There are a lot of neon green headbands. Exactly. It's retro like early 80s, late 70s fashion. Totally. So Lady Starlight says, quote, it was a magical connection.

We were inseparable from the start. She had lots of ideas. We started talking and haven't stopped since. I'm Angie Bowie to her David Bowie. I really love that line. Because obviously the Bowie, the Bowie. For the uninitiated, what is the relationship of Angie Bowie and David Bowie?

Well, Angie Bowie was David Bowie's wife briefly in the 70s. She's credited in many ways for a lot of his fashion and style. And even the sort of like, is he or isn't he gay, buy, whatever, comes out of their sort of collaborative nature. You know, in some ways it makes me think of the Casey Nicole, Perry Farrell, Jane's Addiction thing. It's like collectively as a couple, they were creative in a way that the man expressed to the world.

But behind closed doors, it seems like there was a marriage of two brains that were scheming how to bring music and artists. and fashion and style and ideas together in a new way. I think the goal is get you a woman who will help you find your artistic voice. Absolutely. So Lady Starlight wasn't just a DJ. She was a dancer as well at a nightclub. That's actually how she and Gaga met to hear Starlight say it.

Gaga comes into this club for her birthday and she put a dollar bill in her lingerie. And the two not only became fast friends, but they became creative collaborators. It's a very intimate way to meet somebody. It's not how I met most of my creative collaborators. Not most of them. It is how we met. trying putting a dollar in your underwear didn't. It got us off to a very weird start.

Looking at me in the eyes a little too much as you were doing it. It was a little bit creepy. But very quickly, they started performing under the name Lady Gaga and the Starlight Review. Great name. Lady Gaga would perform pop songs while Lady Starlight would play rock records in between. And this is something also that I can relate to because I'm DJing once a week at this time. And every now and then I would DJ with somebody, some of them I'm still friends with. And they would DJ with like a little headset, like a little mic right there.

And so like they'd put on their song. start singing over it. And typically I thought it was kind of goofy. Like I was just like, I don't know about this. Like, oh, like if the club hires them separately doesn't tell you about it. Oh yeah. Yeah. Like they hired them as like the DJ for the night and they'd like, you know, between Michael Jackson and Gaga, like they would just start singing their own song. And it was always a little bit like, oh, it had a little bit of that element of like when you're dating somebody and they're like, oh, you know, by the way I can sing. And they like pull out of guitar and start singing to you. You're just like, oh, gosh, this is going to be short lived. I can tolerate this.

You can be short lived. But it's also a reminder that everybody has. But it's also a reminder that everybody has to start somewhere. Everybody has to start somewhere. And I was reminded of that when we found this video of Lady Starlight and Lady Gaga performing at Lollapalooza in 2007, and it's pretty wild. It's truly reminded that everybody has to start somewhere. Let's roll the clip.

I love videos like that. I'm reminded while watching this of a video of Megan the Stallion from a recent documentary where she's performing for like 25 people on a food court. You know what I mean? Like with like a sad, you know, back. tracking track and one speaker. Everyone starts with nothing.

Everybody's got it. And I encourage all of our listeners who want to make music for a living. You got to watch the go find your favorite artists. Try and find their earliest performances on YouTube somewhere because it will remind you like Gaga is clearly, you know, already on her path to being Gaga. But like her dress doesn't quite fit. Like you know, like she's still figuring it out. Yeah.

Yeah. It's still on a DIY low-fi. There's no like million dollar stylists working at. There's no light show. There's no like there's nothing behind it. and I like to see my favorite artist where they're first starting out because they're using the same equipment

I'm using. They're dressed and clothes that are off the rack. It seems accessible. Yeah, it removes some of that veneer of, oh, I could never do that.

Yeah. You know, and I think that that's one of the things that makes it human for the rest of us. Absolutely agree. Yeah. First of all,

on that Lollapalooza footage from 2007, it should be said, for our podcast listeners, this isn't like main stage Lalapalooza. They are on the side stage. They are young, up and coming. You know,

it's a little bit shambolic. never been to the Lollapalooza. In the most charming way, it's sort of a shambolic one in the afternoon set. You know, like everyone's setting up still. Oh my gosh, you're so right. It is clearly like 2 p.m. And it's like the stage that's next to like the branded energy drink stand. Right.

You know what? That's right. They're barely at Lollapaloo. The people that had slept on the grass the night before are waking up, you know, from the previous night's show and they're seeing this. Also, the crowd is not really reacting. There's like one guy in the front who's like digging the whole show. Like he's going.

There's like one like. He's been drinking since Wednesday. But he's enjoying it. And I don't think you can put too fine of a point on both the Bowie connection, but also the performance art aspect of what Lady Gaga is doing. I found this great quote from Lady Gaga, who credits Lady Starlight with kind of incepting her with this notion. She says, Lady Starlight said,

what you're doing is not just singing. It's not really a concert. It's not really a show. It's performance art. When she pointed that out to me what I was already doing, I started analyzing that to try and take that in a different direction. And I think this begins Lady Gaga's music career as being bigger than just the music. It's the sum of its parts. She's a real student of everything that goes into it lyrically, the fashion. All of the references are intentional. And it's coming out of Lady Starlight, our unsung hero, pointing out to her that like, hey, there's a word for what you're doing. Like you're not just, just in quotes, trying to be a piano player or a singer. You want it all to come together in this special way. You've got like a story to tell that's three dimensional. And that reminds us. And that reminds us. It's, me that like as a person who came across gaga early i at first thought she was like sort of like

the new madonna yeah lady gaga even sounded like madonna and her you know she's got this italian last name i think even madonna saw that connection yeah totally like we all saw it but as time went on you realized no lady gaga's more like her idols like david bowie like she's she's far more into the theatrics yeah and the and the performance art of it all i do think that madonna though is like her and bowie and Warhol are all in the mix. Because Madonna was herself also a performance artist insofar as the vocals and the singing were arguably like the least of it, you know, in the earliest video era of Madonna. But like certainly she is part of that previous generation with Blondie in the same place

we were just talking about. The New York Cityness is relevant as a connection between like a through line from Blondie to Madonna to Lady Gaga anyways. They all kind of share a very similar New York aesthetic that goes into their how they perform music and present to the world. All right, well, let's talk about some of the other people who played a role in Early Gaga. Yeah, and again, I always thought that, like, this was Acon's attempt to break into a wider

pop market, like a wider, and, to be blunt, whiter pop market. Sure. Like, if I thought of Early Bieber as Usher's artist, I definitely thought of Lady Gaga as Akon's artist. Definitely. I thought of Eminem as Dr. Dre's artist. Like, there was a thing, even in our own lifetimes where it was like, oh, I've conquered R&B and hip hop.

How could I, you know, cross over and get the mainstream market to listen up? So in 2007, after being dropped from Island Def Jam, Lady Gaga, she's only 20. She's washed up. She's washed up. She's been dropped from her label. She got signed to Interscope, and it was through Interscope that she connected with the producer Red One. Which I thought for many years was Redone. Can we talk about that?

It looks like Redone. From the time I heard his name sung, I thought she said Red Wine. A lot of us thought it was Red Wine. I thought it was Red Wine. And that his name was redone. It was like, it was like a chance to take a shot of red wine at the top of that song. Every time you heard. Red wine.

But Red one says the first day that they met, they started talking about Motley Crew. It ended up recording an ode to girls, girls, girls, cleverly called Boys, Boys, Boys. Can I just say also that this is a really funny story to be personally. because I remember one time I was driving with my family and my my oldest son at the time was probably like seven years old. We passed a strip club and it said girls, girls, girls, girls outside. And I'll never forget. He was like, girls, girls, what about boys?

And so clearly. Well done. Well said. I'm going to remind you this later. It just seemed like an average. What about boys? That doesn't seem fair. I see.

He didn't know what was inside. He just thought like it was. He didn't have no idea with that. establishment was selling. But anyway, Redwin says that Boys, Boys was the first song created for the Sonic Blueprint for the album that would eventually be known as the fame. And so when they went to record their next song, Just Dance, Red One already had an idea of what he wanted to do. He says he wanted to do a rock song with big drums, but instead of guitars, here's where they switch it up. He was going to use synths. Now that they had that sonic blueprint, they start working on the next song,

which is Just Dance. Now, Aikon had met Lady Gaga at another session and with, was so impressed by her songwright chops, he convinced Jimmy Iveen to form a joint deal with his distribution label. Acon is quoted as saying, that girl is not human, bro. She is amazing. Like, creatively, mentally, she thinks beyond the average artist. Just to come up with the things that you guys see, she had to dumb certain things down just to get it across so people could understand it, but she's on a different level.

That's a more direct way maybe of saying what I was saying a little earlier. Like the dumbing it down, I think the language is, intended to be a little tongue in cheek. But the idea of simplifying something for it to be put across more directly to a larger audience is such a hard skill. It is so, I have so much admiration for it. So dumbing it down, I think, is Lady Gaga is coming with all of these ideas, conceptual. She's got lyrics. She's got stories to tell. She's got references she wants to put in there, like fashion and like, whatever. And doing that in three minutes in a pop song context with like a kind of a minimum, an economy of language being used, a lot of repetition, ma-ma, ma-ma, ma,

every now and then. That is her genius. That is part and parcel of what makes her so special. And Acon is talking about how he saw that right away. And I do want to take a second just to talk about this idea that everybody has to be a star from the second that you walk in the door. You do hear that. Right.

Like you hear that from A&Rs, you hear that from executives and other artists. Oh, the second they walked in the room. They had a certain something. They were a star. I want to say this might be a hot take, but that's actually always been very frustrated to me because I think that some people are extremely talented and maybe they just take a little bit more like grooming or polishing or something. But I'd argue that the for the gatekeepers and even for the general public, like, does everybody have to arrive just being Lady Gaga or Prince or Michael Jackson? I feel like there should be more room in the world for artists who don't arrive fully formed. That's true. There should be room to kind of develop. But at the same time, you know the experience of like seeing a celebrity across the room. There's something you feel. Oh, dude. The charisma. That's. The charisma. That's. That's true. There's to be room. right, the aura. I just want to say that I came into this episode like liking Lady Gaga. Having spent all this time at this point for this episode, like with her music and listening really

deeply and also watching the interviews and watching her movie Five Foot Two, I adore Lady Gaga. I have really been taken in by the, by the, you know, I don't know if I'm like a monster now, like a little like a mid-sized monster, but I totally get what it is. And it also makes me, I mean, I already knew the 50 hits she's had in my head. And now I'm like listening back to them in my head. on repeat constantly, as we all have been with sleepless nights preparing for this episode, those earworms are constantly cycling through. They're so good. They're so layered and dense and rich.

But like, I just, I can't say it any more simply than this. I really just like her. Like, there's something so attractive about her as a person. And that, as we were saying earlier, that's part and parcel what pop music is. She is somebody that you want to spend time with musically. You want to watch her live. You want to wear the merch, whatever it is. I really get that now personally.

And she's one of the first people who has that truly devoted fan base that she has named the monsters. Yeah. Nowadays, everybody does that. You're right. But at the time, like, she was one of the first two. Before there was Barbes and whatever else, Swifties, I think you're right. I think that was the first one to name her fan base. So as we said earlier, Akon coming up a huge string of hits. And right now he's writing music for the pussycat dolls, but he's hit a little bit of a writer's block stumble. So what does he do? He calls Red One and the two end up writing together the song we know is Just Dance. Now, this is just dance. Now, this is, This was for Nicole Scherzerger. We can't say her name on this show. Neither of those can pronounce it. Shersiger. It's got way too many ours.

But by the time they bring it to Jimmy Iveen, who loves it, by the way, he's like, oh, there's a great song. There's a great song for the Pussy Cat dolls. And I've been talking to Mottola. I thought that was Tommy Wittola. And he agreed. Are you sure it's not, Bob Evans. I don't know.

You have one voice and it's great, but who is it. I know. I know who that guy is. Jimmy Ivy is like, I want to give it to the Pussy Cat Dolls. But you know what? Acon sticks to his guns. he's like, you know, this song is for Lady Gaga. She's going to be a star.

She's going to be a star. And in fact, Acon actually records the first version of the song with Gaga. It's going to be like Lady Gaga featuring Acon. But then there were like some label politics between Interscope and Universal. So eventually he has to pull himself off of it. I know. And he gives it to this other artist, Colby O'Donis. Right.

Who is not at the same level of fame as Acon in this moment. But there is, there's concern at the label that like they're not going to be able to push this song as big as it can go with, out an Acon, like a real big name on it. Right. And it turns out the career of this D-WARD is, right, as one does. And it's actually A-Con who is like, no, the song is good enough. It's going to be a worldwide hit.

He was right. He was a believer. Just Dance is a huge hit to this day. Yeah, in retrospect, it seems like she came out of the gate with 50 hits, which she kind of did. We forget about this now because we think about this moment of Lady Gaga. Out of Nowhere, she has all these hits right in a row from this first record. But Just Dance, the first single, actually took nine months to get to number one.

So much of this is about timing and luck and about all the kind of things that are bubbling in the culture. It took a moment for it all to coalesce in just the right way to launch Lady Gaga into the stratosphere. And into the stratosphere she goes right on the hills of this song, just dance becoming a hit. She releases poker face, which for a lot of reasons is the first true Lady Gaga song to come out. Monster hit. She's one of the writers. For Mama Monster. Exactly. When we get back, we're going to find. out is poker face the highest charting song with often uncensored f-bombs in the chorus? And we will find out who, romantically, Lady Gaga is singing this song, too.

Talk about poker face. Here on one song. We'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by Nespresso. Hear that? That's your next obsession. Every coffee, a new world. Every sip, a new taste. This is the new espresso. One touch, endless possibilities. Iceed, flavored, long, short. Because some days call for that espresso kick. And sometimes a smooth silky latte just wins. It's exceptional but effortless. Like actually effortless. Simply press, brew and explore. Nispresso. What else? Keep exploring at nespresso. Welcome back to one song. Luxury. Before we get into the Stim's, what can you tell us about Red One? Red One. Yes. Another unsung hero of this episode. Well, a gentleman called Nadeer,

who is Moroccan. I love it. And when he was 19, he moved to Sweden for his music career, because he loved Abba and Rockset and Europe. He loved, okay. He loves Swedish pop music, basically. You know, me and Abba, we're on a love-hate relationship, but I do love Rosset. I know they tell me all the time. We're back-shedling.

I do love Roxette. I do. Wait, when I make a list of the three of the biggest Swedish bands of all time, you go to Rock Set. You said, you said Abba. Yeah. Rock said, who's the third? Europe.

You only know one song by theirs. Do you know the three of them? No, Europe. What is it? Oh, yes, of course. The final countdown? Another Gallup song I liked Roxette for the look

I thought that was really catchy Listen to your heart With some schmaltz from my childhood Listen to your heart Yeah I think we said many times on the show There's something of that Swedish water Yeah

That they know how to make a pop song And I think it's because they only understand A little bit of English So they don't overthink the words Well that's a good point There's something about just the sound That what matters in pop music is the sound And we'll get to that exact point that you just made in a second.

Because Red One says a very similar thing about what his approach to songwriting is. So getting back to Red One's backstory, he spends about 12 years in Sweden. He's writing for a bunch of Swedish and European pop acts. He actually has a hit in 2005. It's a number one. It's the Scandinavian Song of the Year. It gets a Swedish Grammy. It's a song called Step Up by Darren Zanyar.

I'll play a little clip of that. That's here. So you can hear a little bit of Red One and future Lady Gaga in this moment. You can hear like the, by the way, I think it's, it might be, and who am I to doubt the Swedish Grammys? But I think that they're, they might be overdoing it with the Swedish synthesizers in that song. You hear the sense are doubling up the vocals. It's like, you cannot miss that melody.

That is an unmistakable what you're supposed to come away with it. I don't know. I don't know. He does. Well, it turns out that that was his one and only hit. He had a moment. He was a little bit too, in my opinion, listening back. This is 2005.

He's just a little too early. to this EDM thing that hasn't hit yet that he's about to be a participant in. So even though he has this number one in this Grammy, that's really, it's a moment and it doesn't last for him. And in 2007, he's about to give up. He moves to New York with his family. They're sleeping on a mattress.

He has no productions. He says, I lost all my money. He's penniless. But just as he's about to give up, as it were, he writes this song. This is Wine Up, Cat DeLuna from 2007. Featering Elephant Man, very important. Dance Hall artist.

You cannot forget about Elephant Man. Here you go. It's such a mid-2000s era song. I was doing the exact same thing. It's like this transitional period, right? If you didn't say, if you said, oh, that's a Pussycat Doll song, you would be like, yeah, of course it is. Yeah.

Yeah, completely. We're definitely just in that zone. We're sort of, there's like, there's a little bit of like a Jamaican dance hall. There's a little bit of Diwali rhythm style underneath it. Like some post-Pungabi MC or whatever. It's like there's a little stuff that's still from earlier, but he's starting to bring in these more Euro. the sense that he's been dying to do,

these sort of like 80 cents and sounds, as we've been discussing. Now it's starting to be that moment for Eurodisco maybe to penetrate the mainstream and global pop. And this song, I mean, for the record, this song is about 125, but it doesn't feel like the high octane four on the floor. It's not the four on the floor. It's not the pure disco yet. But it's on its way.

Yes, exactly. It's on its way. And by the way, the drums on poker face are definitely going to be given us that four on the floor feel. That's right. Before we get into the stem, Can you tell us anything about the splits? Is it a 50-50 split between Red One and Lady Gaga?

Yeah, these guys, when they got together, it was a classic situation. I've talked about many times on the show. I was in these writers' rooms where you're matched with, you know, in my case, as the instrumentalist, as a music guy, I would have been matched with a top liner. So I would have been the Red One to Lady Gaga. And it's a 50-50 split. Oh, that's awesome. They get together. They're writing these songs, as we discussed earlier.

They don't necessarily know who they're for. Lady Gaga's hoping it's for her. But they write a bunch of hits right out of the gate. this is one of them. Great. We're about to get into it. But don't forget that in the same series of sessions, like over the course of just a few weeks,

they write Just Dance, they write Love Game, they write Bad Romance, four top five singles that's insane. In 30 days or less. I heard they got Just Dance and Pokerface done within two hours.

It's insane. Those songs came together so quickly. They came together so quickly. But we're going to focus, of course, today on Poker Face. Starting with the drums, Let's get into it. You know, when I was listening back to the drum stems in particular, I was just reminded of this era, this is a moment where producers, especially in electronic music and hip hop,

there's this phenomenon where there's like a hard drive full of samples that gets passed along for one person to the next. There are still sample CDs, which is where you might get your beats, your kicks, your snares. You can chop them off of a record. And later, there's going to be things like Splice, which we've talked about many times. Which is a website where you can go and audition a whole bunch of sounds. But in this moment, all of us were carrying around our hard drive. So when I heard some of the individual stems, like the kicks and the clap,

I was like, oh, I totally know this. Oh, I know that scene. I recognize this. I recognize that I had. So here is the kick drum that goes throughout the entirety of the song, four on the floor for the entirety of four minutes. And it's got that, that's a hard kick drum. And then just touch me.

It's a good kick drum. I would have selected that one too because it's got a kick drum. It's kind of dark, but it kind of punches through. It does punch through. I will say when I went back and listened to PokerFace and prepare for this episode, it is definitely that maxed-out wavelength that we talk about. It's all very started. It's a brick wall.

Yeah, absolutely. It may be as you suggested, it might be an 808. It is tuned. I hear like, I think that's a little bit of notes. It's a G-sharp. Like, it matches to the rest of the song. But it also, it doesn't sound like a typical 808. Let's put together with the clap and the high hats to hear the entirety of the beat.

That is the beat on just. dance. It has a couple of moments that are a little bit varied, which I'll play for you now. One of them is exciting. It's a little sample and hold thing happening in the high hats. I'll play that for you, isolated first. I'll bring back the kick and the rest of it. And that's happening during the pre-chorus. I love it. And then finally in the chorus, we have the same thing, but the high hats came back. Three, four, quarter notes on the high hat. And you have now heard all of the drums on poker face. You know what's interesting. is that if they're gone into like a disco

hi-hat it could have a totally different feel but he's going for kind of like hard he's going for hard yeah it's it is so it's interesting you say that because I think especially as we get into the synths now as we talked about before it was an intentional thing for there to be also some rock DNA yeah happening in this song

well I and what you just pointed out the eighth notes to me and the absence of a umz-n-s-n-s-s like it doesn't have that open high hat that you yeah put into a disco song a house song the absence of that and those kind of rock highhats that are open, contribute to a little bit of a rock vibe. I'd also argue that it makes it dark.

I think it's easy to forget that there are a lot of female pop stars that are coming out around this time. And a lot of them are going to stick with us throughout most of the next decade, like Katie Perry is coming out at this time. You know, Beyonce is segueing into more dancey stuff. Rihanna is doing more dancing stuff. I think one of the things that is specific to early Lady Gaga guy is that it's kind of you're saying rock I'd argue it's rock and it's dark yeah like there's an

element of darkness to it darkness is um on on the beginning of just dance and poker face where it just feels like you've entered into a mysterious club where there's where there's a lot of smoke machines and maybe people in leather and late no you're absolutely right part of it is the sounds part of it is that it's in a minor key and we'll be listening in a moment to to the sense that tell you that we're in the minor key well let's get into the shirt minor yeah because we know the red one is really big on Sins. What are the Sints doing in this song? So as we all know, because the song starts with it, we have this first synth. So that's how the song starts. We already knew that because iconic opening. We didn't need the stems for that. That's how it is. But as I was listening back

and thinking about the like rock connection, especially the punk rock connection, I was reminded of this intro. Now bear with me. I can't wait to hear it. It's different. No, I might be halfway there with you. It's pretty vacant by the Sex Pistols. It's on the guitar. But it's eighth notes. playing the same notes basically, the fifth in the octave. I like it. No, I like you drawing that connection. Something's going on there. And then secondly, when we get into the second layer of synths,

which I'll now play for you doing this, just straight eighth notes. Again, kind of similar to the pretty vacant sex pistols line. Yeah. I'm going to play just briefly that same part with the drums in it. And then I'm going to play something that it reminded me of. Just on this listen, with all of the like glam rock Lady Starlight stuff going on in my brain. It's a bit of a stretch. but now listen to this Judas Priest's song,

you've got another thing coming. It's four on the floor. And it's eighth notes. I'm feeling a similar vibe, and it's what Red One had talked about, using synths in the place of guitars to do a similar thing functionally that rock music would do.

It's driving you forward. It's got darkness to it. It's dance music, but as we're both kind of like figuring out in real time together, it's not your typical, it's not happy, upbeat, disco dance music.

It's a little darker. and yeah, I think it's sort of bringing me to this other place. I love all that. I think that you're really onto something. You played the sex pistols where I definitely feel like there's some connective DNA. But there's something maybe like Depeche Meals Violator album about the way that it goes like synthy dark. Yeah.

But also rhythmic, right? That's the one. But it's rhythmic. We did enjoy the silence a few episodes ago. But I'm thinking more world in my eyes. Okay. You know, which starts off with like, you know, sort of like some synthy darkness. Totally in the same zone.

Yeah. It's the same zone. This is pop music meets tones on tails to me. Yeah. Poker face. Yeah. The beginning, like, you know, if you're really open to it, it's got some gothiness, some BDSM, which I was sitting at earlier.

Yeah, it does because I think that that's what she was going for. You're in a dark club on the Lower East Side and all of these things are coming together. And this music comes out of that experience. Yeah. Well, listen, I've played for you nearly all of the synth, but there's one moment where we switched briefly. It's actually a very brief moment of actual bass in the synth. As I went through the stems, I was really surprised how sparse this song is. And there is bass, but not very often.

It kind of comes and goes. So the bass comes right after what I just played for you in the intro sense. And then it stops right when she starts singing. And here's what that sounds like. And then it switches to that and. And one, two, two, and three, and four. And so I'll play that for you. Oh, that was very cheeky red one.

I like that. Yeah, just a tiny variation. Yeah, that was cool. With the beat, it's on the beat. And then it switches. And then she starts singing. That's just to get your head nodding. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Really clever choices, super sparse, that bass doesn't come back for a while. And then in the chorus, we have a sub-base that kicks in. A third synth? Amazing. Oh, there's actually a bunch of pads that kick into. I'll play those for you.

But first the bass, here's the chorus. Do you hear that there's two bases in it? They're doing very different things, too. So what's interesting about, that is that these are both kind of in the same frequency zone and they're doing different things that are theoretically in conflict like they're different one of them's going done done done the other one is changing to the other chords yeah it's going from the one to the six to the three to the four dun dun dun dun dun dun they are rubbing yeah in theory but in practice no one's no one's bothered

this is still a monster hit so i'll play that for you with a little bit of context and again next time you hear it, you'll notice it, but like it's been there all along. It's a little bit like two songs playing at the same. I love it. Yeah. I love it. Maybe it's the drummer in me and you that it's like, it's fun to go, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, it's a little Easter egg for the percussion fans out there. But the biggest edition by far is that in the chorus, we finally got this big wall of 80s synths. Let's hear those isolated. Like the sunshine, when all was darkness at the beginning. And now I can't unhear the Depeche mode.

That sounds like the Depeche mode. That sounds like the Depeche mode to your point. Oh yeah. I can hear that too. I mean like definitely like the weekend. Gaga. These are fans of like 80s synth pop. I would argue dark, dark synth pop.

Dark synth pop. Absolutely. Yeah. Even though those are bright synths and bright chords and bright notes and bright patches and filters, it's still because it sounds like a goth organ. It sounds like a goth choir. Yeah.

It's not quite like it's not all like major chords in St. Peter. It's also just a moment of sunlight because the rest of it is we're back to the D-Dong-Dun-Dun-Dun-Don-Don-ton-ton-ton-ton-ton-tum. So there's not much that we haven't heard in the song synth-wise, but there is one more hook that you can't forget about during the bluffing with my muffin section when we hear this. And one thing that struck me in both the synths and when we get to the vocals, we'll talk about it, is there's sort of like a circus-like quality to some of these

melodies, a dark circus. Yes. A burlesque, dark, goth circus, perhaps. That's where I want to go. Part of that is coming from, there's just a couple of chromatic notes, like a couple of half-step-down notes that are like, I don't know, in this case, there's a tritone in there,

which is a little unexpected and has a lot of darkness to it. I was once told, I think, inaccurately, but it stuck with me that's like the church bandit in the Middle Ages. I don't know if that's true, but a tritone is that note that you hear in every heavy metal song, which is like, dun, dun, dun, don't. It's the farthest note away from the first note.

It's right in the middle of the scale. So that's happening in there. It gives it some darkness. It gives it some metal. Every Metallica song you're going to hear a tritone in it practically. So some interesting stuff. Now that you said that, can I hear it again? Absolutely.

Don't da, it's that one. You know what's funny is I actually don't really hear metal. I hear like a crazy Halloween cartoon. Oh, totally. No. I just meant that in metal, that note comes up a lot too. But it is a way of presenting musical.

darkness, I would say. So Halloweenness, gothness, even the circus thing, the sort of dark circus five that I was getting at first. It's the scary circus that comes to the case. It's the scary circus. Yeah, absolutely. If you're talking about Lady Gaga, you're talking about somebody who we know has one of the best voices in music period. She's a, I keep saying, Tony Bennett would not co-sign on a mediocre musician, a monster musician and a monster mom. She does it all. She does it all. Quadruple threat. I want to hear some isolated. vocals. Let's start at the beginning. Let's start with the verse number one. Play close attention to how many times you hear the note B repeated, because that's most of what

you're about to hear. Mom, mom, mom, mom. I want to hold them like they do in Texas, please. Fold them, let them hit me, raise it, baby, stay with me. You just heard the note B 40 times. Yeah, I believe it. I love it. There's something very, I don't know, I want to say Teutonic. Yeah, Teutonic is the word. Yeah. It's German, it's Depeche Mode is also Teutonic. non-Germans making German sound like here and she's like, I want to hold them like that day. It sounds like the Weimar Republic.

It sounds like right before Hitler took power, this is what everything sounded like. It's moonshine and cabaret. Absolutely. It's Liza Minnelli. It's Joel Gray. It's all of them. Why do we like that?

Why is that cool? Like the first Interpol albums have that too. The singers basically are like, I want to pull your wind clothes. Got to wrap your round tight. you know like sometimes you want your singer to not really sing sort of deliver something in a terrifying way sort of terrifying melodic way

I keep saying terrifying on the show that's a terrifying melody though 40 bees in a row is terrifying. I'm like it sounds like Patty Austin but then she goes into this other again chromatic section with the tritone in it and that's this next melody hook number three at this point and if you include the mama mama mama

we're like 20 seconds in and we have three hooks already and that's this part Love game intuition play the cons with spades to start Those are three notes that are right next to each other They're half steps apart So that's chromatic and one of the notes is that same tritone So again just sort of investigating the song for this show I'm sort of noticing how that's part of the darkness that we feel

It's not from just our regular minor third Which is the note we just heard 40 times It's this other minor third which is the tritone So like that's how it's also, unique and unusual in pop music to hear it, especially that often. She lets you know she can sing on the love game intuition. Like that's what she's like, you guys, I can do more than sing B 40 times. Yeah.

Exactly. You ready for the fourth hook? I'm ready for the fourth hook, which is doubling as the pre-chorus, I believe. So crazy. Oh, and I guess my count is wrong when I said there were five melodies. Oh, wait, that Ossanado is a six melody, that melody? It's actually this one. I forgot that what she's about to sing.

is what the synth did later in the song. There's only five melodies. There's only five huge hooks. My bad. My mistake. I stand corrected. Here is the fifth by my count hook. I'll get him hard to show him what I got.

The whole song is just so wonderfully. Yeah. And the places that it goes are almost disorienting. Menacing is, I'm so glad to use that word because that, to me, it's like it's a seduction that's a little terrifying. I think we've all had that moment. I certainly am flashing back to like a New York moment where like there's someone that's attractive

and you're sort of vibing and there's something happening, but there's something so obviously dangerous about them but you can't help it being sucked into their tractor beam. And that's what Lady Gaga is kind of doing to my ears right now. It's like, stay away, come closer. Stay away, come closer. Stay away, come closer.

I love that you got all that from, oh, whoa. No, it's good. I mean, the word menacing really like landed it for me. It's like, oh, yeah, this is a menacing seduction. song. Let's get to the chorus. And by the way, is this the chorus? Because I'd argue that there's a, there are two choruses in the song. Yes, there's like the sort of, I hear that. I've gone happy. The music has lighten. Can't read my, can't read my, no, he can't read my poker face. That could be the chorus, but that could also be a second pre-chorus because if you put a gun to my hand and please

don't. I actually think the chorus is what comes after. It's the poker face. I'm wondering if you have a pre-chorus and a chorus and a post-chorus, but you never have the pre-chorus by itself or the post-course by itself. Is it all just one long chorus? Wait, you lost me. I just blew your brain. This song has a pre-chorus, a chorus, and a post-chorus.

But they're never separated. Like, if you do the pre-course, you always go into the chorus, and you always go into the post-course. Are we now talking about just one long chorus? I think you're describing perfect songwriting is really what it is, because every hook, I'm bringing the musicologist industry to its needs

with this take. Not much of an industry. Every hook, you can't wait for the next one. And you're like, oh, it's about to be this one. That to me is like the journey you're trying to take somebody on in a perfect pop song, which this clearly is based on like how iconic it is become in the culture and how it launched your career. Because one hook to the next or the next to the next to the next,

you almost you're almost overwhelmed with like, you know, earworms and sonic goodness. There's so many airworms. But we're going to let the, we're going to let the, we're going to let the one song Nation decide which is the chorus is it this part another hook don't forget about seven hook that sounds like a chorus to be sounds like a chorus to be but then play the next and i'd forgotten that there was that other hook in there the like answer what is that line she got me like nobody that's that's so red one is actually

background vocals in this yeah yeah but you can hear a big stack of both of them she's got me like nobody performing the entire song it's just the two of them that made this entire thing. So they're also in the vocal stack there. And boy, I lost count, but another hook. Another hook. But possibly now we're about to play us the biggest hook of all. That other part that I actually argue is the chorus of choruses. Pup, pup, pucker face. Pup, p p pucker face. Ma. Ma. Ma. Bop, bocker face. All right. Let's talk about it. What does she want you to do to her face?

Poker face. Poker face. And then she sounds like she says, p p p p p p puck her face. But there's a story here, is there not? No, I'm just trying to find exactly where the transition in my mouth happens between the P and the F. Puff, Puff, Puff, Puff, Puff, Puff. Puff, Puff. Puff. Puff. Puff. Puff. Puff. I don't think she says Puff. If you play it again, I think she's saying Puck. Let me be clear. Yeah. Let me be clear. I think she's say Puck. She clearly says in many interviews that she's dropping an F bomb there. But I still hear a P. I'm hearing a fuck. Play it again. It's definitely that last one.

She's cheeky, right? Because she slips an F in there on the very last P. It's the sixth one. Pah, pa, pa, pa, p, mm-mm, that's where it is. That's what I'm hearing. Pab, Bup, Boker face. Pappap, Bacar face.

I really think, yeah, she's dropping in an F where there should be a P on the very last one. Because the first five, your ears, like, it's kind of like, I mean, we just did this on the 1901 Phoenix episode, right? The first three or something, and your ear gets convinced that the fourth one's going to be the same, but then the closer read. Pop-b-b-b-b-poker face.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's crazy. It's almost like when the E-40 dropped that song Batches. And all he did was he took the eye and made it an A and somehow it made the radio. Like, it's crazy to me when people just slip in a curse word. Sometimes people, they pull it off. Well, you're absolutely right because she did,

there is a famous show from 2009 where in front of an audience, she talks about how Kiss FM censored the song and then she sort of winks and goes and they were right to basically she literally said that was the one radio station who correctly censored the chorus one of my absolute favorite parts

in this song besides this 19 choruses is the bridge I love the bridge it's the one part that I think draws a direct line from like artists like peaches and Uffy if you remember Uffy so glad you said peaches

it drives but even Uffy on I think she was on Ed her records. Her sort of gaw-gat rap. She was ready to up too. Yeah. She was ready to up. I'm ready to fuck.

Ready, ready, ready to fuck. Uffi, Uffi, Uffi. Let's play a little bit of the bridge because this to me sounds like Uffy and Peaches. I mean, in a song that's clearly double entendred with, uh, with, you know, a poker game but also like you know sex at play you know there's like this third level uh and she's talked about it in these interviews just this third level of yeah i actually when i wrote that song the poker face element is that i'm i'm sleeping with a man but i'm thinking about this woman that i want to sleep with so that part's really interesting she's bluffing with her muffin i guess there was also a song called blueberry kisses

which also had a line about bluffing with my muffin exactly that was a song that never kind of didn't make the cut, but she still liked the story behind it. Kind of an inside joke to herself to be able to at least bring that line into it about the muffin. In a Rolling Stone interview, she says, it's a song that never came out, the muffin man misses them kisses. It was about a girl going down on her, as she says. There you go. We've talked about Boni M'em a lot on the show recently.

I would not have expected three episodes now, the third time. Yes, we were talking about it in the recent Donna's summer episode. But what is the connection of Boney M-M to Poker Face? Well, you know that Mama-Mama part? Yeah. It goes something like this. Ma, Ma, Ma. That's actually, it's not a sample.

It's an interpolation, or if you will. Interpolation. Of a song by Boni M. Right. And here it is. This is Ma Baker from 1977, brought to you by Boniame, the same band that brought you Rasputene during the pandemic. So that interpolation is, you know, just to be clear of what's being borrowed, like the specificness of it all. it's a phoneme ma four times in a row on the same note it's the same rhythmically but technically

nobody can own a single phoneme being repeated four times on the same note right so i would imagine with the jimmy iovine and a con and everything of it all someone thought to clear that and or have a discussion behind closed doors this is the opposite of sample snitching this may be right one of the most well-known interpolations of all time but we couldn't do this show without bringing it up and can i just say one of the things I love about Maabaker by Bonium, it serves as the backbone of one of my favorite songs by The Avalanches. Here's a small clip of it in Live at Domino's.

So, luxury, see it where Lady Gaga is today. What do you think is the legacy of poker face? Well, clearly the legacy of poker face and all things, early Gaga, is like, this is the story of a woman who went from the Lower East Side months earlier, or maybe a year earlier by the time, the number one-ness of this song rolls around, to instant fame and instant acclaim and instantly transmitting this message across the globe

about acceptance, I would say. It's a big part of what her story is, which is part of what connected me to her as I was watching the documentary and kind of going through all the songs and seeing the story she's trying to tell. It's about fame, sure. It's about art. She's using pop as a mechanism to tell her art story about fame. But really at the end of the day, she's a very accepting person. And I think what people connect with about. her is that her message is just that, you know, between some of her album titles like born this way and, you know, having this family of people that she brings in called her monsters and everyone's accepted no matter how quote unquote weird or strange or different they may feel. When I think about Lady Gaga

and I think about poker face, I think like in this moment, she kind of exploded into the pop world to bring this message of kind of, I mean, the same seems corny to say, but like of hope, you know, that not all things pop need to be disposable. There can be something deeper behind them. Yeah, to me, poker face is almost like the first real Lady Gaga song. Yeah. Like this is the first song that she does where she is full on like one of the creators of the song. Just Dance was like a song that like Red One was working on with Acon before. But this is like her, this is almost like her declaration of independence. Yes, that's a great word for declaration. It's extremely personal. and it sort of sets from like the broken disco ball she wears in the video like i think from this point

through 2025 when we're recording this you can't listen to gaga without thinking that she shares a personal connection with her music this is the first song that does that yeah and it sort of sets a template for all the gaga songs to come and it also i will just say you know there have been times where she's gone full tony bennett there's times where she's gone full singer-songwriter at her computer Yeah, incredibly eclectic range of styles and albums. My favorite Gaga is always going to be Gaga with the scents and the drum machines. And this is one of those songs that does that. I'd also be remiss if I didn't add that I used to start my DJ set off with her version of Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe.

She was the original singer on Bitch Don't Kill My Vi by Kendrick Lamar. I have no idea. Here's a clip. I am a sinner who's probably going to see. again. Lord forgive me. Lord forgive me. Things I don't understand. It was only because of label politics that that version never.

That's not a remix or a cover. That was the original demo? Oh, no. That's the original version. Wow. That's incredible. Yeah. So as you said, a lot of diversity in the many styles and faces of Gaga. And we don't think she's going anywhere anytime soon because she just keeps reinventing herself and reinventing what she's capable of doing when she steps into that boot.

Okay, luxury. It's time for one more song. This is the segment where we share a deep cut or hidden Jim with you, the one song nation, and with each other. Would you like to go first? Well, this is a song from a band that not everybody knows had a serious chapter in their career. That's right. I'm talking about the monkeys. And they put out a really good record called Head with this movie.

It's a soundtrack to a movie. It's very psychedelic. Jack Nicholson's in it. It's got this song on it that it's a title that pops in my head constantly. it's a very existential title and a very existential lyric the song is called do I have to do this all over again didn't I get it right the first time

wow and boy is that deep right that's all you need that's a sentence so to me you know kind of evokes sort of Buddhist or Hindu feeling of reincarnation and how exhausting that kind of feels. You're in the middle of this life. It's exhausting.

But man, it's going to be another one after this. What about you, Diyah? What's your one more song this week? My song is a song called Street by a band named Igor, E-G-O-R. It's a very dark underground metal song from 1971. Very little was known about this band up until very recently. But through the powers of the internet, we're now finding out more about the band that recorded it. I'll let you do that research on your own time.

But I really like the song as it was. Igor is the name of the band. And the name of the song is Street. Sounds like Blue Cheer. I like anything where there's mystery involved. It feels like there's just like a bunch of stoners in Mendocino. It's like living on a marijuana ranch, marijuana farm, and in the basement with one microphone. And it sounds great.

Their story is even weirder than that. But I'll let fans of the show look that up. The name of the band is E-G-O-R. Igor. The name of the song is Street. As always, if you have an idea for one more song, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram at Diallo, D-I-A-A-L-O, and on TikTok at Diallo-R-R-L. And you can find me on Instagram at LU-X-X-U-X, and on TikTok at Luxury X. And now OneSong officially has its own Instagram and TikTok. One song's all grown up. Go follow at One Song podcast for exclusive content and all the music debates that you love.

You can also watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube right now. Just search for One Song Podcast. We'd love it if you'd like and subscribe. And if you've made it this far, I think that means you like this podcast. So please don't forget to give us five stars, leave a review, and share it with someone you think would like it. It really helps keep the show going. Luxury, help us in this thing. I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist and overthinker luxury.

I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes therapists, be all a riddle. Thank you for being my therapist. Get again. And this is one song. We'll see you next time. This episode is produced by Melissa Duanez and Casey Simonson. Our associate producer is Jeremy Binbo. Engineering for Marcus Homb and Eric Hicks.

Additional production support from Razak Boykin. The show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Eichael and Leslie Guam.