1:46.
Ask any true fan of A Star Is Born what the significance of that time-stamp is and they will most likely be able to immediately tell you that it’s the exact moment Lady Gaga sings the movie’s first teaser trailer. It was the world’s introduction to Gaga as a serious actress, Bradley Cooper as a director and singer (as Jackson Maine), and, of course, to “Shallow,” the unexpected hit song of 2018 that no one saw coming—or can stop singing.
“Shallow” is up for four awards at the 2019 Grammys on Sunday—including Song of the Year and Record of the Year—and has already taken home trophies at the Golden Globes for Best Original Song among many other wins.
After this weekend, Cooper could very well likely be a Grammy winner, with Gaga set to add a few more golden statues to her already impressive mantle, which holds six Grammys.
So how did “Shallow,” the sort of country, sort of pop, sort of rock duet you can’t get out of your heard, end up rocking both the movie and music industry?
Let’s go back to the beginning of “Shallow”‘s journey.
At that 1:46 minute mark of the first trailer, which has been viewed almost 26 million times, a tentative and timid Ally grabs the mic, with an encouraging Jackson looking on after pulling her on stage to sing with him.
“Whoa-oh-oh-oh,” she finally wails, satisfying that ever-increasing anticipation that had been building since she first walked on stage. We’re right off the deep end with her as she dives in.
Goosebumps formed. A hit song was born. With anticipation already pretty damn high, the hype for A Star Is Born was officially kicked into overdrive.
Some of the comments on YouTube video include, “Did anyone get chills at Gaga’s entry or is it just me?” Another: “I got chills from 1:47.” One more for good measure: “Wow, her voice is so powerful you can feel something, gives me chills.”
Sensing a theme here? Another popular chorus among the comments went something like, “The movie hasn’t even come out yet and I desperately want the song.”
But, rather than give the people what they want right away, ASIB decided to wait until the week of the movie’s release to make “Shallow” available for download. Cruel? Yes. Worth the wait? Obviously.
Warner Bros
Fans were first able to hear the song in full when Gaga debuted it on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 radio show in September 2018, explaining, “It’s such a special song. We made this song about two people talking to each other and the need to dive into the deep end and stay away from the shallow area.”
Still, fans had to wait a few more weeks to be able to wail along with Ally in their cars or showers.
“Shallow” debuted at No. 14 on the Billboard Digital Songs chart. One week later, the song was at the top of that chart, selling 58,000 copies. Meanwhile, it also debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 28, and after the film was released it jumped to the No. 5 slot. It was eventually certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for selling over a million copies.
The most impressive number, however, is the face that the song was streamed 8.3 million times. And by the end of January, that number is now over 148 million streams.
So what was it about that first trailer’s wail that immediately hooked people in…and kept them refreshing their iTunes for months?
Gaga herself isn’t quite sure, but she addressed the response in an interview with the L.A. Times following the song’s Oscar nomination, saying, “I just was really excited to see it capture people. I almost feel like that thing you call a wail is a cry or a prayer for freedom: Is this gonna happen or is it not? Let’s go do this. I’m ready to get out of the shallow. That moment when I sing that way, I think that people felt a very guttural need from me that they related to.”
Gaga wrote the song with producer Mark Ronson, who worked with her on 2016’s Joanne, as well as Andrew Wyatt and Anthony Rossomondo, and it was one of the first songs written specifically for the film.
Neal Preston/Warner Bros.
For the pop superstar, the writing process for the duet was “different from any other experience I’ve had writing a song,” she told the L.A. Times.
“There was a grave nature to the room. I was at the piano, the guys each had a guitar in their hands and we started coming up with lyrics and talking to each other,” she explained. “That’s really what the song is. It’s a conversation between a man and a woman. But we didn’t know that when we started.”
Part of the reason they didn’t know that when they initially set out to write the song was because A Star Is Born’s ending was completely different in Cooper’s original version. (Spoiler alert!)
Originally, Jackson was set to drown at the end. (In the final version, Jackson hangs himself.) “Shallow,” then, was supposed to be the end credits song, not the mid-movie climax.
So Gaga comes in, sits down at the piano and starts playing a few chords, and it just sounds big, right off the bat. And she comes up with the chorus, ‘I’m off the deep end, watch as I dive in,” Ronson recalled. “She’s got most of the thing in her head, and I’m just trying to offer some words. ‘Crash through the surface, where they can’t hurt us.'”
Clay Enos/Warner Bros.
He added, “It felt like an end credits song because it was about the suicide. Or maybe that’s just me. In my mind, it was the end credits song, and he’s drowned.”
But as the film’s narrative changed, “Shallow” shifted along with it, taking on a more metaphorical meaning.
“There was a time when he was going to drown in the end, so we thought it might be the ending song,” Gaga explained to the publication,” then as the script changed we made it a song about the two falling in love. I do feel it was more than the literal drowning element of the original script. It was much more about wanting a deep connection and love than it was about water.”
“One of the first things Mark said to me was, ‘OK, I know you can write a pop song, but what do you absolutely have to write about?'” Gaga explained in a behind-the-scenes video. “We were writing ‘Shallow’ from the point of view of Ally.”
Before the movie’s ending was altered, “Shallow” was conceived as a solo for Ally. Cooper knew as soon as he heard it that it had to be in the movie.
“I really loved that song when she had first played it for me and it was just finding out the best way to utilize in the movie,” Cooper told MTV International, “and then the idea of maybe making it a duet instead, having it be the first time he hears her sing a song that she’s written on the spot. So it really ended up being an anchor for the whole movie.”
In a featurette, Ronson admitted, “I had no idea it was going to become part of the narrative.”
But the song really came together when Lukas Nelson, Willie Nelson‘s son whose band Promise of the Real appeared as Jackson’s backing band in the movie, came in taking it to the next level, helping to blend Jackson and Ally’s parts to create the duet.
For Nelson, he told Thrillist, “I think Bradley sang the best on that song for sure. It was his best vocal performance.”
When it came to the song’s meaning, Gaga explained to the L.A. Times, “It’s a conversation between a man and a woman asking: In this modern world, do you need more? She’s challenging him when she sings back to him: ‘Ain’t it hard keeping it so hardcore?’ How long can we exist in the shallow?”
In the movie, Ally spontaneously sings the song during her first meeting with Jackson, rendering him near-speechless as she belts the chorus in a grocery store parking lot.
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