Tuesday Tune Two-Fer: You Have To Believe We Are Magic

This week’s tunes were initially going to be in honor of Universal City Walk, the two songs I hear most often being blasted at full volume while I’m just trying to walk to see a movie. But honestly, I can’t bear to listen to “My Universe” by Coldplay and BTS again. So I’ll just start with the other one:

The thing that makes me think I might be just homosexual instead of full-on gay is that I’m mostly unmoved by “Abracadabra” by Lady Gaga.

Don’t get me wrong; that performance on SNL (YouTube link just above) is phenomenal. As was her stumbling-through-the-hallways-of-30-Rock performance of “Killah” in the same episode. She’s amazing, and she never seems to give less than a superstar performance of anything.

But the music itself just doesn’t connect with me. “Abracadabra” in particular just sounds to me like a Lady Gaga sampler: a little bit of the “Bad Romance” thing mixed with maybe “Paparazzi” or “Poker Face?” If she’s not dressed up in red and hopping around like a cartoon demon, I’m not into it.

Maybe it’s a generational thing. When I was a kid, I thought “Abracadabra” by the Steve Miller Band was really catchy.

It was a simpler time, and our pop stars were more relatable. There’s no way in hell I’d ever in a million years be able to do a fraction of a percentage of the stuff that Lady Gaga did live, twice, on top of appearing in multiple sketches and a digital short. But I could totally have written and sung this version of “Abracadabra.” I bet when Steve Miller came up with “reach out and grab ya,” he thought “nailed it!” and called it a day.