(L-R: Anthony Rossomando, Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson) Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Moet & Chandon
Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper will sing their duet “Shallow” at the Academy Awards on February 24, and that night, Gaga and her three co-writers have a good chance of taking home the Oscar for Best Original Song. Two of those writers, Mark Ronson and Anthony Rossomando, say the song turned out so well because they’ve been friends with Gaga for more than a decade. In fact, they still remember the exact night they met her — because she made quite the impression.
Speaking to ABC News at the annual Oscar nominees luncheon this week, Mark, the man behind “Uptown Funk,” recalls that he and Anthony met Gaga in London back in 2008 or 2009, when she was promoting her very first single, “Just Dance.”
“Anthony was living in London at time and had this great apartment with instruments set up, and everyone would go to have these jams,” Mark says. “I was like, ‘You wanna see the real London, [Lady Gaga]? Let’s go to my friend Anthony’s place.'”
He laughs, “So we were jamming, she’s on the piano, like, yelling, barking orders at everyone! And she sees [Anthony,] she’s like, ‘Hey, pretty brown eyes — why don’t you speed it up a little?'”
“And I’m like, who the hell is [that]?” laughs Anthony.
And that’s why, Mark explains, they were able to write an emotional song like “Shallow.”
“There’s a lot of trust and a great relationship between all of us, so we all went somewhere quite personal pretty quickly, that maybe if we’d all met that day, or if it was just a regular songwriting session, might not have happened,” he says.
Of course, Lady Gaga’s amazing voice didn’t hurt, either.
“It does make you write better in the room,” says Mark. “It’s an inspiring thing to be around.”
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