Gay Talese’s New Yorker piece on Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga’s upcoming duet (not available online) provides some illuminating insights into the pair’s recording process. Put more bluntly: It catalogues the many pickup lines that Gaga, who started drinking early in the session, dropped on Bennett. Some sample quotes: “What was it like with the girls?” she asks. “Do they always get this way around you? Do they always get really nervous and stand there sweating and blushing?” When presented a 1951 article about Bennett and his female fans: “Oh, Tony, I would have been chasing you around. Oh, Tony, do you die when you read that?” And randomly: “Hey, Tony.” “Yes.” “I missed you, baby.” Gaga also tries to convince Bennett that he’d get along with her friends, because “they’re always in three-piece suits, with beautiful hats on. They like to go out and pretend like it’s the fifties.” Bennett is a pretty good sport about the come-ons, letting Gaga ramble and indulging the Yankees references she throws into “Lady Is a Tramp.” We’ll see how he feels when she’s singing about him in drag atop a cornfield piano. [NYer]