Ahh, King Princess… the (cheap) queen of putting us deep in our feelings. Fresh off the release of her stellar debut album, the “1950” singer appeared on BBC Radio 1’s Chillest Show with Phil Taggart, where she took a seat at the piano bench for a pair of intimate performances. First, she gorgeously pared back the Cheap Queen cut “Ain’t Together,” but it was her cover performance that has really left us speechless.
The 20-year-old decided to put her own spin on Lady Gaga’s “Speechless,” from 2009’s The Fame Monster. Gaga’s original version was written about her dad after he had undergone heart surgery, but KP’s softer, more shattered rendition zeroes in on the feeling of loving a person who turns out to be someone you never really knew. She repeatedly tweaks the lyric “I’ll never talk again” to “I’ll never love again,” and notably changes the song’s pronouns; where Gaga normally sings, “Oh boy, you’ve left me speechless,” KP changes the object of the song to “girl.”
The cover is heartbreaking in its quietness, and a total stunner; just four-plus minutes of King Princess and her piano. Check it out below, and see her performance of “Ain’t Together” here.
King Princess’s “Speechless” cover comes after proving her status as a Little Monster on more than one occasion. Last year, she covered “Joanne” alongside her label boss and frequent collaborator, Mark Ronson, who’s also worked with Gaga a number of times. And last fall, KP talked up her love of the pop icon in an Interview Magazine conversation with Ronson.
“She’s the first pop star that I had really witnessed in that way,” King Princess said of Gaga. “When I was younger, I would stay up and wait for her videos to drop. She was different — not afraid to be gross and funny and sexy, all at the same time. She championed the queers, like an extension of Madonna and Tina Turner and all these people who support the gay community without being a direct part of it. For me, she was the closest thing to having a gay icon.”
