“I think the music that affected me the most in my life happened pretty early,” Lady Gaga tells us. “I feel like those formative years when you’re first discovering music is when you’re like a sponge, and you soak everything up.” The pop superstar, fresh off her album Mayhem, went deep inside several of these for Rolling Stone‘s new My Life in 10 Songs video series.
The video kicks off with Bruce Springsteen‘s “Thunder Road,” a highlight from 1975’s Born to Run that Gaga “chose instantly” for her list. “Springsteen has influenced me my whole career,” she tells interviewer Christopher Kim. “Bruce had a very particular grit and soulfulness, and when I was making Born This Way, I thought a lot about how to incorporate who I really am into my music, even more than I did during The Fame.” Gaga says the latter “was more about my dream for myself,” while Born This Way was “more of an album that was looking back on a particular time in my life.”
She adds that the song reminds her of her father, and that he used to play it for her in the living room as a kid. To her, the song is about “romanticizing the past, but in this way where you have this beautiful memory of how you let things go.”
Next up: Beck‘s “Nicotine & Gravy,” off 1999’s Midnight Vultures. Gaga says the single “really spoke to who I was as a 19-year-old living in the Lower East Side, and getting my kicks with the locals. I would say the way that it affected my life the most is that watching Beck change made me feel like I wanted to change.” She then picked 1977’s “I Was Born This Way,” by pastor and gay rights activist Carl Bean, describing how it influenced “Born This Way,” her song (and album) from 2011. “I heard it, and I was like, ‘I wonder if there’s a way to flip this into a modern pop record,’” she says. “The genesis of this gave way to something that I think for me is the most important record of my career. Not just for me artistically, but for what it means.”
Gaga’s other picks include Iron Butterfly‘s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” David Bowie‘s “Watch That Man,” and “Hey Little Girl,” by Heavy Metal Kids. “When you find records that help you understand or see yourself, or they become the soundtrack to you and your friend group, that’s pretty powerful,” she says. She then dove into some Seventies classics, including Stevie Wonder‘s “Superstition” (“I definitely had my moments on Mayhem where I was thinking about him”) and Carole King‘s “Tapestry” (“Her voice and her songs are like a warm hug”).
Gaga then veered into the Fifties, choosing two gems that were both released in 1959: Dinah Washington’s “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes” and Miles Davis‘ “So What.” She also described her love of classic-rock staples, like the Rolling Stones‘ “Sympathy for the Devil” and Led Zeppelin‘s “Thank You.” “It was kind of like learning that the unattainable rock & roll god could really love you,” she says of the latter. “That there was a human being underneath the legend of it all. This idea of drama and theatricality in music, and then sincerity. I think those were two things that kind of yin-yang for me.”
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Gaga concludes on She Wants Revenge’s “Tear You Apart,” the Cure‘s “Never Enough,” and — her 15th pick — Justice’s “Stress.” “That’s more than 10,” she jokes. “And I could go on and on and on.”
