Yahoo Finance Lady Gaga rewrote classic Cole Porter lyrics to honor Tony Bennett on Love for Sale
Lady Gaga etched Tony Bennett's legacy onto her art, soul, and arm.
The Oscar-winning singer revealed in a new video that, in tribute to Bennett's impact on her both personally and creatively, she made a slight change to a set of classic Cole Porter lyrics that appear on their new collaborative album Love for Sale (out Friday).
"It's just such a memorable lyric, and we were joking [because] I have a tattoo of a sketch that Tony made of Miles Davis' trumpet on my arm," Gaga says of recording their take on Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin," which appears on the LP — which Gaga previously described as the last album they'll record together amid the 95-year-old's Alzheimer's diagnosis. "I also have his signature, 'Benedetto,' so when we were singing, I was saying, 'like a tattoo under my skin.'"
The recording on the album version sees the pair trading verses originally written by Porter for the tune's first release in 1936, though Gaga adds the tattoo line at the end, with Bennett chuckling after he hears Gaga's impromptu take on the song.
Gaga first received the tattoo around the release of their 2014 album Cheek to Cheek, a cover collection of jazz standards that went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart upon its debut.
Tony, this is the last album we will have created together, but the celebration of jazz, and us as musical companions, will live on with me forever. We offer the public “Love For Sale” for free love, to make them smile, because that’s what we’re here for. ❤️ Love, LG pic.twitter.com/VP6QifdrHA
— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) September 17, 2021
In the Love for Sale preview, Gaga goes on to explain that she wants to "make Tony proud" throughout her career "by carrying jazz forward and continuing to sing it" as an extension of his impact on the music industry.
"This has been really special, and it's a time that I'll never forget," she says over images of herself crying while shooting the album's promotional photos. "And I can only hope and pray that when people hear this record, they know the value of that sort of intergenerational friendship."
Lady Gaga changed classic Cole Porter lyrics on 'I've Got You Under My Skin' to honor her Tony Bennett tattoo.
Gaga and Bennett first worked together on a cover of "The Lady Is a Tramp" for the latter's 2011 album Duets II, ahead of 2014's full-length Cheek to Cheek album. They later embarked on a tour together that stretched into 2015, before Bennett was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2016. In an AARP profile published earlier this year, Bennett's wife, Susan Benedetto, revealed that his doctors recommended that he maintain his work in music.
"There's a lot about him that I miss," Benedetto told the publication. "Because he's not the old Tony anymore. But when he sings, he's the old Tony."
Watch Gaga and Bennett preview Love for Sale above, ahead of the album's Friday release date.
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