When Lady Gaga Rode to "The Edge of Glory"
The death of Clarence Clemons, Bruce Springsteen's longtime saxophonist, on June 18, 2011 sent the rock world into mourning. Amazingly, for a sideman - even one as notable as The Big Man himself - the legendary horn player occupied a spot on the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 when he passed, thanks to a rousing solo on Lady Gaga's "The Edge of Glory."
The epic closer to Gaga's Born This Way album from 2010, "Glory" was written by the singer after seeing her grandmother care for her grandfather in his final days. "There was this moment where I felt like he had sort of looked at her and reckoned that he had won in life," Gaga told The New York Times. "Like, 'I'm a champion. We won. Our love made us a winner.'...I thought about that idea, that the glorious moment of your life is when you decide that it's okay to go, you don???t have any more words to say, more business, more mountains to climb. You're on the cliff, you tip your hat to yourself and you go."
An avid Springsteen fan, Gaga reached out to Clemons to perform on several tracks from Born This Way - and the connection was almost literally immediate. Reached by phone on a Friday afternoon, Clemons was asked to drop everything and head to New York City to record with her; he arrived in the studio at midnight and recorded his parts in three hours. "I would have done it for free," The Big Man later told Rolling Stone. "I can never believe something that feels so good earns me money."
Known for her larger-than-life music videos and costume changes, the clip for "The Edge of Glory" was a more intimate affair, with Gaga dancing through a set that resembled a New York City tenement in a Versace-designed leather-and-studs outfit. The only other person in the video? Clemons, sitting on a stoop and playing along to his solo.
The pair played the song together live once: on the finale of American Idol's 10th season on May 25, 2011, weeks after its release as a single. Though Clemons would be gone only weeks later due to complications from a stroke, the song became a symbol of his enduring appeal. It sat at No. 7 on the Hot 100 when he passed away, and would climb to No. 3 weeks later.
