It Had To Happen: Lady Gaga Goes Country

Lady Gaga's impending appearance at Toyota Center - two weeks, y'all - has been on the calendar for so long, and sold out for so long, Rocks Off Sr. has practically forgotten about it. We have let most of the Lady's pop tornado whoosh right by us to the willing Rocks Off Jr. for the past couple of years. Seems better that way.

We just got a whole lot more interested. Lucky for us, because it's our turn to review the show anyway.

Less than an hour ago, we stumbled across the latest remix of Gaga's "Born This Way" on billboard.com, the original of which remains at No. 1 on the magazine's Hot 100 chart. Gaga and her collaborator Fernando Garibay have papered over the skeleton of Madonna's "Express Yourself" - as much as possible, anyway - with harmonica, slide guitar and piano for something they are calling "Born This Way (The Country Roads Version)."

Sit down, John Denver. Take a listen for yourself here. It's not going to make anyone forget Tammy Wynette, and Gillian Welch probably doesn't have to worry about losing too many of her fans to the Lady, but it is kinda cool. It's further proof both that a great pop song is a great pop song no matter its musical garb, and that the world is Ms. Gaga's right now and the rest of us just live here.

Rocks Off Sr. passed along the link to Jr. for his expert opinion. "Doooood," he said. "That's some G'N'R Lies kinda stuff."

We would not have thought of it like that. Some of us were just born this way, we suppose.

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