The Highwomen Put Their Spin on Lady Gaga’s ‘Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)’ [LISTEN]
The Highwomen lend their signature, four-part vocal harmonies to a new country-rock interpretation of Lady Gaga's "Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)," one of the tracks from the pop superstar's 2011 album Born This Way.
In addition to the Americana supergroup's four mainstays — Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby and Amanda Shires — the Highwomen are known for incorporating a wide variety of musical guests into their songs. For their take on "Highway Unicorn," they enlisted singer-songwriters Brittney Spencer and Madeline Edwards to join them.
The Highwomen's Gaga cover is part of larger compilation project called Born This Way Reimagined, which accompanies Born This Way: The 10th Anniversary, the singer's deluxe re-release of her landmark Born This Way album. The 10th Anniversary features all 14 of Born This Way's original songs, while the Reimagined tracklist is a six-song selection of Born This Way covers. Acts including Kylie Minogue, Big Freedia, Ben Platt and Years & Years join the Highwomen in contributing songs to the Reimagined project.
Also on Reimagined, Orville Peck offers up "The Country Road Version" of Gaga's title track, "Born This Way," which was a chart-topping single upon its release and has gone on to become an anthem for many in the LGBTQ+ community. All six of the Reimagined songs were recorded with the intention of being released as part of Pride Month, by queer artists and allies who seek to represent and advocate for LGBTQ+ listeners.
The Highwomen released their debut — and, so far, only — album in 2019. They haven't released much music since, although Shires recently explained that she and her fellow Highwomen see themselves not as a traditional band, but rather, a movement that will ebb and flow to accommodate the needs of the people with and surrounding it.
"In the future, [my vision for the Highwomen is] to continue to expand, to make sure that the band and the group is never as important as the names inside of the group," Shires explains. "It's always meant to be a place where people could come in, tell their stories, get their voices heard, and be a place of love and accommodation, you know? So what I see for us is continuing to expand and bring people in and accommodate, also, the roles that we have as women."