I don’t pay a lot of attention to celebrity gossip, but I do occasionally listen to top 40 radio in the car to get a sense of “what the kids are listening to” (and it amuses me somewhat to hear my oldest daughter choke and gag on songs that her trend-chasing friends are obsessed with…she generally has pretty good taste, her friends often don’t). A couple of weeks ago, I was rather delighted to hear that the new Lady Gaga single making the rounds is “Yoü and I,” as I really liked it on the record. It actually keeps growing on me, largely because it’s such an interesting alchemy of musical elements. It’s a country song, produced by rock legend “Mutt” Lange (the guy who made Def Leppard and Shania Twain sound like Def Leppard), written and performed by a dance diva/performance artist, built from a sample of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and featuring Dr. Brian May (also of Queen) on guitar. Also, totally metal ümlaüts.

As I said when I did a little review of Born This Way, “Yoü and I” is probably one of the better country songs released in recent years. What I’d really love to see is for the cross-over road to stop being one-way for once and have GaGa get some play on country radio with it. Not that such things will ever happen, as country as a genre is very insular and traditional; if you don’t conform to a very specific public standard, you’re shunned (just ask the Dixie Chicks or Chely Wright). I don’t see country programmers giving Gaga a shot on their stage, even if top 40 and HotAC invite Lady Antebellum and Taylor Swift over to play all the damned time.

But that’s not really the topic I wanted to get into. This weekend, I heard “Yoü and I” spin up, and noticed something was off. When it invariably came up again in 30 or 40 minutes, I listened more closely. The lyrics had changed – all instances of the word “Nebraska” had been replaced with “Virginia.” Weird. Not that it didn’t scan, but it was just different and odd enough to throw me.

So, as you do in these situations, I ran to the internet. Yes, it seems that the other week, Gaga started trickling out regionalized versions of the song to various radio stations. Along with Virginia, other geographical locations immortalized (as immortal as one can get in the world of pop radio) include New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, and Cleveland (wonder how that scans?) and various others, with apparently more to come.

It’s simultaneously exactly the kind of thing Gaga, a pop star who’s pretty responsive to fans, would do, and a pandering marketing move that feels a little too “on the nose” for her enigmatic image, but it’s probably going to get her some (more, mostly positive) attention. I’m also sure this is far from the first time someone’s tried this successfully.

The internet’s kind of quiet on generalized chronicling of this (as opposed to other musical tropes like the trucker’s gear change), but I know I’ve heard localized versions of songs from mid-tier artists on top 40 radio before. Usually, it’s just a bit of ♫ Uh…Richmond…Yeah! ♫ sloppily wedged in an intro or a rap breakdown, but not always. The only other instance I can find specifically mentioned out there is LFMAO’s “I’m in Miami Your City, Bitch Trick” or whatever it’s called from a couple of years ago. I’ve probably heard this dozens of times, but it honestly made no impression beyond planting the idea of the local shout-out in my brain.

I can’t help but figure that this is a reasonably common enough occurrence that it has a name that cynical disc jockeys (do those still exist? Do DJs still exist?) refer to with disdain, but I can’t find any particular references, even on tv tropes, which is usually all over this sort of thing. They’ve got lyric swap and listing cities, but nothing describing this particular phenomenon.

This is becoming the new memorial car decals for me…can anybody point me to anything on this?