Lady Gaga’s “You & I” Music Video Premieres: OPEN THREAD

Originally set to premiere on Thursday, Gaga said F the man and surprised fans with the following tweet and link to the “You & I” video:

[yframe url=’https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9YMU0WeBwU’]

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In Gaga-adjacent news, have you heard about the Britney tribute at the VMAs in two weeks? Gaga along with Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Nicki Minaj, and Janet Jackson will each take a song (Gaga’s to perform “Circus”) as Madonna presents a Lifetime Achievement Award. Exciting times, people!

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Jess

Jess is a pop culture junkie living in New York City. She enjoys endless debates about The L Word, Howard Stern, new techy gadgets, DVR, exploring the labyrinth of the Lesbian Internet, memoirs, working out, sushi, making lists, artsy things, anything Lady Gaga touches, traveling, puppies, and nyc in the fall. Find her on Twitter @jessxnyc or via email.

Jess has written 240 articles for us.

79 Comments

    • That was my question. My first thought was, “Oh my God, it would probably be so painful for a mermaid if someone tried to fuck his/her cloaca! Cloacas are not meant to be stretched!”

      But then I realized that this was a music video, mermaids aren’t real, and if they were,there’s no reason they couldn’t have a more developed urogenital system.

    • Well, according to a book I have:
      Mermaids’preferred means of reproduction, for those of you not up to speed on the sex lives of water-dwelling-mythical beings, is to castrate the [human] man just at the point of climax. Then she scatters the seed on her own eggs in the way that fish do.

      Lovely, no? I guess that’s what must be done in the absence of the necessary lady bits.

  3. MTV was supposed to have the Thursday premiere of this vid but she tweets Fuck Thursday and posts it anyway. Stickin it to the man. Just one of the many reasons I <3 her.

  4. It is my secret dream that actually in bed, Lady Gaga is like super vanilla. You know like she’s really boring and saves all the kink for her videos.

  5. i kind of really love this. i am 95% sure i don’t get any of it, but that’s really not necessarily a bad thing.

  7. I feel like this was 7 different videos smooshed into one, which is awesome but also like, babe you had me at cornfield so why did you have to go all mermaid/injection/wedding ?

    • “you had me at cornfield”

      …and also the automail arm/crossroads dancy bit was kinda cool. i kept waiting for the storylines to coalesce, but sadly, that was not to be. gaga’s gonna do her thing her way. :)

  8. Wow, this song is really country eh? Really boring, formulaic country.
    The video, as usual, is absolutely gorgeous though.

    • My thoughts exactly. I like the video, but I think I hate the song. I barely sounds like Gaga.

    • Yeah, I feel like even “Edge of Glory” was kind of veering toward that sound. Really boring/disappointing/unexpected.

    • I feel that way about Gaga in general though: gorgeous videos and really boring, formulaic music (except I do like “Bad Romance”).

    • This is by far my favourite song off Born This Way. I would love to see her do more of this! I like that it’s less produced and more just her singing. I can’t seem to view the video though…

      • Agreed. I loved the version she did live before, but I adore the album version. The country comments confuse me, to be honest. It has hints of influences but it’s in…no way a country song?

  9. I haven’t read anything about this yet, and I could be way off, but this is sort of what I see happening:

    I think it is sort of a battle between choosing her love life or her career. So the guy (who isn’t Jo) represents her romantic relationship. He is trying to change her/kill her and keep her for himself (turning her into a mermaid so she can’t get out of the bathtub, drowning her and then lovingly stroking the glass). And she looks dead in the scene where they marry. Like her soul would die if she let herself choose a relationship over music.

    Then Jo Calderone represents Gaga following her music, focusing on herself, etc. That scene is the only time she smiles in the whole video, and everything in the corn field is natural and peaceful. She doesn’t have any of her fancy outfits on, and all of the mechanical parts of her in the other scenes (her face, her arm) are gone. Just Gaga and the other version of herself, sitting at a piano.

    What I saw was Gaga choosing herself and her music over romantic love.

    Thoughts?

    • I think this is spot on, especially since she’s talked about how she chose her career over the guy she was dating when she was just starting to get famous-ish, and she’s said that a career can never leave you. Also, in the music video she says something about six years, so maybe that’s when she and her ex broke up?

  10. Interesting… I love anything Gaga. I must admit I was glad to see she didn’t rip anything off like she did RENT in her last video. It always takes me like 20 takes to digest what is really going on in her videos. Still love her though!

  12. i feel like these videos should come with a 20 page-folder explaining plot, characters, costumes, context, EVERYTHING.

  13. I don’t know whether I find Gaga dressed as Jo Calderone hot, or slightly intimidating.

    Gaga kissing herself was pretty hot though, not gonna lie.

    The video confused me a bit though.

  14. This an interpretation from the Lady GaGa boards from when You and I came out.

    ““Beware of strange oddities. The more he tries to change me, the more magical I become.”

    The way I interpret this, that a ‘boy friend’ tried to change her from being what she wanted to be, and no matter how hard they tried, they just made her crazier and more imaginative.

    In “You and I” the music video, you see a man consistently changing her appearance from crazy to simple, and near the end, she turns into a mermaid because no one can conceal her imagination. The more you try to hold her back, the stronger she lets out her ideas.”

  15. This song is awful. This video is okay. I also like her in drag.

    However, why the F is Britney Spears getting a lifetime achievement award?

  16. Whoa, I’m kind of blown away. This is definitely my new favorite of all her videos. FABULOUS costumes/makeup! And I love that she decided to put Jo in a music video. :)

  18. So Jo is just, like, Bruce Springsteen from 1984, right? Maybe Gaga could go out and play Nebraska all the way through at some shows or something. I would be entertained by that.

  19. I just watched this at work on mute. The comments are useful in understanding what just happened.

  20. I hate this song, but the video. THE VIDEOOO. I love it. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to say that about a GaGa creation.

    • fair warning, they do not come standard with stripper poles/dancy people #ifonly #thecowswouldbedelighted

  24. I watched the video before reading her tweet- and then once I read the tweet I understood it. Gaga making out with Jo was quite sexy. I love the weirdness, I love the imagery, and I loved Gaga as a mermaid.

  25. I felt kind of like I was listening to Taylor Swift.
    It seems to be the more mediocre Gaga’s songs become the more crazy/awesome her videos are.

  27. It told me that the video was private. I guess I am not part of the private club? Maybe they can tell I don’t love Gaga enough to see the video early.

  28. here are my thoughts, in no particular order

    1. gaga makes out with herself… in drag, my mind is blown
    2. this was filmed like 20min from where I live
    3. wtf this looks like a horror movie set
    4. nebraska nebraska i love you (except when you vote all conservative and stuff)

  30. Frustrated that the one time she says you and “I” in one of her songs instead of you and “me” (such as …could write a bad romance) it’s STILL incorrect. Come on, Gaga. Get your grammar in order.

  31. Too much going on the video, but loved the drag. My straight roommate is totally confused by her attraction to Jo.

  32. I haven’t been this excited about a Gaga video or song since Telephone with Beyonce. It’s pretty good.

  34. what the hell is with this song??? Is she serious. Why aren’t people more outraged? Is making an aesthetic video really th way to go to hide less than mediocre music?

    i mean at least the last few videos went along to the general beat and feel of the song. for a second i thought another video was playing at the same time as this and had to look at her lips to match the lyrics.

    so disappointing…. I’m generally a gaga fan (conceptually).

  35. watching this video reminded me of eating sushi. i don’t know what the fuck i just put in my mouth, but its delicious.

  37. I couldn’t sleep so I watched the video and now I really can’t sleep. It freaked me out a bit, but I should have known that.

    On a side note, as someone who performs in drag, thinking about kissing my alter ego, Rocco Stallion, is kind of gross. Don’t get me wrong, Rocco is one hot dude, but at the end of the day, it’s me dressed up as a guy. So watching Gaga kissing hers actually creeped me out.

    Also not a huge fan of the song.

  38. is it just me or does it seem like the lyrics of the song and the message of the video are diametrically opposed? song: “i’m not leaving without you; i love you; yoü and i; i’d rather die.” video: “i don’t need you; all i need is my music; you can try to make me into your thing, but i’m mine.”

    i can’t decide if i really like the disconnect or if it’s just annoying.

    individually, i love both the song and the video!

    • I thought that too but I always kind of wonder with Gaga if the video actually has anything to do with the song. I know her videos are meant to be symbolic or something, and maybe I’m just too unenlightened to get them, but I think she often makes really gorgeous videos that have little or nothing to do with the songs.

    • But if the ‘you’ is her music, then there is no disjunct. This had not occurred to me before I read these comments, but now it makes the lyrics make a lot more sense. Especially since she’s clearly channelling Springsteen and Nebraska is a classic Springsteen album about fucked-up love affairs (title track: about a man sentenced to death for murder – ‘sheriff, when the man pulls that switch, sir, and snaps my poor neck back / you make sure my pretty baby is sitting right there on my lap’), this interpretation explains the ‘there’s something about nebraska’ line. There’s something about GaGa’s addiction to herself, to the music she can make and the ideas that she has, that grow stronger as they get more twisted, however much other people might try and fuck her over.

  41. This song/video/article gave me so many emotions that I am going to have to blog about it.

    Basically, Jo Calderone = yes please.

    The rest of my feelings about Lady Gaga are too mixed to coherently express in a comment.

  42. My feeling is that I love the video and everything happening in this video and I never have any complaints about anything Gaga does. Ever.

    But I liked it better when Pink made out with Pink.

  44. I’m not sure what to think about the song itself, because all I can think about is Jo Calderone and Gaga making out.

  46. I actually really enjoy this song. I feel like it shows off her actual voice a lot better. It’s just so raw.

  47. I’m a big Gaga fan because she creates (or steals) fab dance music, but Joey Corleone? Gaga isn’t my idea of a hot date, Pink? Oh yeah!

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