Exclusive: Behind the Scenes as Lady Gaga Hits "Gossip Girl"

In just over a week Gossip Girl will go Gaga when the singer performs a special rendition of her new single "Bad Romance" on the November 16th episode, fittingly titled "The Last Days of Disco Stick." "She was amazing," one of the show's executive producers, Stephanie Savage, tells Rolling Stone. "She was willing to stay on set and perform silently in the background of all of our shots so that she could stay a part of the scene and integrated into the action." Gaga's performance of "Bad Romance" incorporated a few Gossip Girl-specific lyrics, but Savage says there are no plans to release the revised version, so fans will have to tune in to catch it. (Check out an exclusive photo of Gaga on the set, above.)

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Savage notes that the show's staffers have always been big on Gaga — they used "Paparazzi" on the Season Two premiere, which was taped in the summer of 2008 — but feared scheduling difficulties would prevent the singer from appearing on the show. When a storyline involving Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley), a writer applying to NYU's Tisch program, and his actress girlfriend Olivia Burke (Hilary Duff) developed this season, Savage realized it could mean Gaga, a Tisch alumna herself, would finally set foot on the Gossip Girl set.

Gaga filmed her cameo in mid-October at New York's Angel Orensanz, a downtown synagogue-turned-performance space, and Savage estimates the star was there for at least a half-day of production with Badgley, Duff, Jessica Szhor (Vanessa Abrams) and aspiring pop star Leighton Meester (Blair Waldorf), even though her role lasts only one scene.

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Gossip Girl has had a few other high-profile musical cameos: No Doubt guested as Snowed Out on an '80s-flashback episode last spring and Savage's favorite band, Sonic Youth, performed at an onscreen wedding last month. Both acts also reworked material for their Gossip Girl gigs. No Doubt covered Adam and the Ants' "Stand and Deliver" while Sonic Youth transformed "Star Power" from an aggressive rock song into more subtle acoustic tune. Next week will find dance rockers the Plasticines performing "Bitch" at a cotillion for the show's newest queen bee, Jenny Humphrey. Savage says more live acts are planned for the second half of the season, but isn't naming names. "I'm keeping that under my hat for now!"

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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