Koot Blog: how I came to enjoy Lady Gaga...

... in a healthy way, is an interesting story. The first time I ever heard a Lady Gaga song I was very, very disturbed. I was at the movies with Lara one afternoon about a year and a half ago (I guess that makes me quite late in discovering the Gaga). We saw a movie about a little boy who has embarrassing parents but cool grandparents and discovers a parallel world of tiny people living on his grandparents' country estate, or something. To enter this world the boy had to be mummified with a piece of magic rope which then started shrinking with him still in it. It scared the bejeeses out of Lara, and to this day she worries about this little boy's welfare. Weird portal ropes and cartoonised little people aside, this was a fun children's movie and Lara and I had a good time bonding and such. I think most of my bonding is done during movies, but that another story for another time. As the movie comes to a close, the end credits start rolling and we get up to leave, Lara and I are treated to the following lyrics:

'I wanna hold 'em like they do in Texas, please

Fold em' let em' hit me raise it baby stay with me
(I love it)
Love game intuition play the cards with Spades to start
And after he's been hooked I'll play the one that's on his heart'

At this point I'm hardly even noticing the song, too busy making sure we've collected all of our belongings and trying to stop Lara from running up and down the aisles so we can go home. The song merrily plays on and that's when I hear the words that shock my mother heart:

'Oh, oh oh oh oh, o-o-o-o-o-oh
I'll get him hot, show him what I've got.'

Excuse me? Get him hot?? Show him what you got?!
It's funny actually. Whoever decided that this was the perfect song to end this film with, did very much realise they were targeting an audience of children and their parents, so they Disneyfied the song. They got a choir of 10 year olds to sing it, and simplified the music. Somefrickinhow the obviously childless genius who made that decision, also made the decision to not change the lyrics at all. No, the lyrics were perfectly fitting as they were, really complimenting the movie! The really scary thing about all of it is that Lara loved this teen-bop version of the song and as we walk out the door I just know she's going to memorise exactly and only that one line, and regurgitate it over and over on the tram on the way home. I'll get him hot, show him what I've got.

So when we got home, I got on the computer and typed 'I'll get him hot, show him what I've got' into the computer. Lucky for me the family filter was on, a necessary precaution when your fingers often type faster than your brain can think, so the only thing that came up were song lyrics. And that's the story of how I first came to know of the existence of Lady Gaga.

Since that frightful afternoon I can't say that I've had too many encounters with Lady (is that her first name? do you think I can call her by it?). I don't watch a whole lot of tv, or read a lot of news but sometimes the pictures of her outfits were just impossible to miss. At that point all I thought of her was that she is obviously a very creative woman, without any scruples. Then I came across this:

And I thought, 'Huh?'. Hold the phone. (pun intended) That's the same girl?? I knew the blonde hair and ridiculous outfits are a marketing thing, she might even call it art and self-expression... but I didn't see this coming. She is one incredibly talented Lady and unfortunately I had never before been able to see that because I couldn't get past all the hoo-hah. Not because I'm someone who can't get past hoo-hah, but because there was just so much of it going on in Gaga-land. I was happy to find out she isn't just the craziness and sex she is selling at the moment.
And that was it. I've not given her much thought since that little revelation, until this morning when I came across something completely adorable. Someone must have seen the same movie as Lara and I saw, and must have had the same worries as I had, because someone went and turned some of Lady Gaga's lyrics into little works of vintage children's book art, with the help of arist Andrew Koulb.