The ‘Magic Trick’ Lady Gaga Learned From Bruce Springsteen

To be a great performer, one must strive to connect with those at the very back of the venue just as much as those in the front row. Bruce Springsteen knows this, and Lady Gaga learned it from him, she said in a recent interview with Stephen Colbert.

By the time Gaga was born in 1986, Springsteen had already released seven studio albums and was an international star. Gaga herself entered the music business when she was still a teenager, and in those early years, she played all sorts of small venues, including the Bitter End in New York City, where she sat down with Colbert.

Colbert brought up something Springsteen had told him: “There’s a magic trick that happens with the audience, and there’s a moment of transcendent connection.”

Gaga couldn’t agree more, saying it was Springsteen who taught her that.

“I think that I’m always striving for that moment,” she said. “Listening to Bruce, especially his live recordings, you know, he had this way of putting himself and you just so close together.”

The First Time Lady Gaga Met Bruce Springsteen

Gaga went on to mention the first time she ever met the Boss.

“I couldn’t believe he came to my show,” she recalled. “I was so overcome with emotion because I felt like I knew him, and I felt like he had narrated my childhood, my life. I felt like I understood my father because of Bruce’s music because my dad grew up in Jersey.”

READ MORE: Most and Least-Played Song Live Off Every Bruce Springsteen Album

She continued: “That magic trick that he’s talking about, I think what he’s trying to say is, like, we’ve all got this, like, goal of the soul when we’re on stage and it’s to touch somebody and hopefully move them. And move them in whatever way they need. You know, it’s not for me to decide what somebody in the audience needs from me. It’s just, I think, for me to try to offer it.”