When Lady GaGa first unveiled ‘Yoü and I’ on her ‘Monster Ball’ tour, her colourful past was immediately brought to mind. Not one to shy away from her roots, it’s now widely understood that Stefani Germanotta cut her teeth on the New York cabaret scene whilst donning her wackiest thrift store ensemble to a bar full of rowdy punters. It’s no doubt a highly romanticised version of events, but the song itself wasn’t far off what we imagined pre-GaGa sounding like.
Naturally the track has undergone some minor sprucing in the studio, but the sentiment behind it remains as clear as ever. “You taste like whiskey when you kiss me, ooh/ I’ll give up anything again to be your baby doll,” she confesses about her on-off lover Luc Carl over a hi-gloss country-meets-’80s rawk melody; before Brian May himself steals the spotlight with a stadium-rousing guitar solo. The result is a torchy, retro-classic, all-American power ballad custom-built for the masses – and one we suspect Stefani would be proud to call her own.