When it comes to talent and accolades, very few artists alive today can compete with Lady Gaga. Not that she’s trying to compete. She’s an incredibly humble and caring human being, even though she knows her impact and her power. Part of what makes her so exceptional as a person and as an entertainer is that she has the unique ability to take even the most mundane life experiences and turn them into an extraordinary work of musical art. After all, we’re talking about a lady who suffered bullying from her classmates in college because she was so talented and ambitious. A group of peers created a Facebook group called “Stefani Germanotta, you will never be famous.”
It’s not unrealistic to think that Lady Gaga takes that experience and other experiences of rejection into account when she writes her soul-stirring and gut-wrenching ballads. Her tenacity and ability to do her best in the face of adversity has served her well. It seems her haters are her motivators, as my wife likes to say. And Gaga has had no shortage of motivation if that is the case. She has won in her career already 11 Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award for her acting role in “American Horror Story,” an Academy Award for Best Original Song, and two Golden Globe Awards. I’m pretty sure that this effectively proves her university wrong indeed.
One example of Lady Gaga taking life experiences and turning them into art is her song “Million Reasons.” This is a song that she wrote after being in her studio at home one day and sort of casually discussing with other people the disappointments that come from love and dating. This beautiful song is a “stay or leave” ballad of sorts and has an up-tempo rock vibe to it. The title of the song was lifted organically from their conversation that day, according to songwriter and “Million Reasons” collaborator Hillary Lindsey. As they shared their experiences in love, one of the phrases that Lady Gaga said was something like, “they give you a million reasons to leave, but all we need is one good reason to stay.”
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Lindsey described Lady Gaga as a “badass songwriter,” and then she said she told Gaga that she was going to have to leave if Gaga didn’t stop talking, or otherwise, she’d just have to move in because everything Lady Gaga says is a song. Also, there’s this: Lindsey says Gaga writes her lyrics on an old-school typewriter. How amazing is that? Watch below as Lady Gaga sings “Million Reasons.”
