I'm not a Gaga fan, but recognize her talent, although it can be hard to find through all of the gratuitous garishness of her shows and production. Take this song in its album version and it's a dance tune, but as a ballad with just her singing with piano and it's better.
Leave it to the Stern Show's long history of bringing out the best in talent, whether in interviews or performing. It just figures that after her appearance, I'd post a song of hers; it's all Stern's fault. What's missing here is the long preamble where she goes into the genesis of the song, how it's about her grandfather who at the time was dying, and her grandmother who wouldn't leave his side. Gaga explained that she told her grandmother that he didn't want to die in front of her, that (being Italian) he was too proud. So she convinced her grandmother to leave after having been there for something like two weeks, and a couple of hours later he passed. Gaga used being on the edge as that moment when one is about to cross over.
I guess I'm a sucker for these kinds of stories, and her setup made the song moving to my sappy sentimentality. As DeNiro says to Minnelli toward the end of New York, New York; "Sappy Endings."
