Lady Gaga shared a story before her tribute, and it felt personal in a way that set the tone. She told everyone that she had rough nights in school and would blast Carole King’s You’ve Got a Friend to get through it. She said it made her feel like Carole was really her friend in those moments and that memory stayed with her for years.
That made the moment even stronger when she got to perform the song for Carole, who was sitting right in the front row. Gaga sat at the piano and kept everything stripped down and simple so it felt more like she was talking to her through the music. Carole watched her the whole time, and the look on her face pretty much showed how much it meant to her.
People have always said Gaga gives something extra when it’s just her and the piano, and this one fits right into that. Her voice moved from soft to big without anything behind it, and you can really hear every part of her range. The music guy who talked about the performance said she is underrated as a pianist and called it a tasteful performance.
The version she sang was from the MusiCares tribute in Los Angeles on January 24, 2014 and it recently showed up again as an HD upload online. Fans jumped on it fast and the comments were filled with people saying things like Her best cover to date and For me this is her BEST piano performance. Others went on about how the performance made them cry and how they were glad it was shared again.
Another performance of hers that people still talk about is Million Reasons from the Royal Variety Performance. In that clip she leans all the way in vocally and the ending where she sings a cappella is one of those moments that people replay a lot. The orchestra behind her made the whole thing feel big and dramatic but it still sounded like her at the center of it.
Carole King released You’ve Got a Friend on February 10, 1971, on her album Tapestr,y where it was just a deep cut at the time. She wrote the whole song herself. James Taylor recorded his version at the same time, using some of the same musicians, and Joni Mitchell sang backing vocals on it. He put it out as a single, and it went to number one in the US and number four in the UK.
Listen to the moment in the following video:
