Lady Gaga’s special tenth anniversary edition of her sophomore album Born This Way is finally here, and along with it come the last two “re-imagined” tracks from Ben Platt and The Highwomen. Platt’s take on “Yoü and I” maintains the original’s bluesy vibe, with the addition of some strings, and is the first of the tracks to get the full music video treatment. The clip finds the singer and his band performing in a wood paneled saloon, bathed in the golden light of a summer sunset.
“I love u @ladygaga,” Platt wrote on Twitter, neglecting to add the extremely necessary umlauts. “Thank you for letting me part of #BornThisWay reimagined.”
Meanwhile, all-female country supergroup The Highwomen give their version of “Highway Unicorn (The Road to Love)” more of a distinct spin. Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris and Amanda Shires are joined by guests Brittney Spencer and Madeline Edwards on the cover, which, with the addition of piano and acoustic guitars, is a dusty, jangly reflection of Gaga’s arena rock-tinged original.
“On the road to love let’s remember to be kind to ourselves, be of service to someone else at least once a day, and be present,” the band said in a statement to CMT. “Follow your dreams. Chase them down and own them.”
The two tracks are the last in a series of six covers of songs that originally appeared on Lady Gaga’s 2011 album Born This Way. For the tenth anniversary edition, Gaga tapped queer and ally artists to “re-imagine” her work, and has been steadily rolling out the tracks all month. Big Freedia led the pack with her bounced-up “Judas,” followed by Orville Peck’s update of the “Country Road Version” of the album’s title track. In the following weeks, we got Kylie Minogue’s disco-influenced version of “Marry the Night” and a new version of “The Edge of Glory” that became an ’80s fantasia thanks to Years & Years’ Olly Alexander.
Born This Way The Tenth Anniversary is out now, along with all kinds of very necessary limited edition merch.
