Lady Gaga in "You and I"

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Lady Gaga may have tried to connect to the Heartland when she posted the country mix of "Born This Way," but now she's literally walking there in the new music video to "Yoü and I."

The Springfield, Neb.-based clip leaked a whole two days early, as the singer was waiting for Thursday to post her 1000th Tweet and celebrate with a premiere through all the normal channels.

She spent Tweets 997, 998 and 999 acknowledging the early drop, with a "F*CK" and "THURS" and "DAY"; No. 1000 conceded with a new YouTube link and the message, "You must love all + every part of me, as must I, for this complex + incomprehensible force to be true."

Speaking of complex, check out what Gaga goes through in the video, all in the name of love. The premise revolves around her walking from cosmopolitan New York all the way to field-strewn Nebraska, her couture heels cutting into her feet and legs. When she gets there, Gaga is apparently willing to be tortured in a barn and medical experiments are performed upon her; her alter-ego Yuyi, a mermaid, is made to flop in a water trough.

But it all works out: Stockholm Syndrome makes for great nuptials, multiple climaxes and hate sex. But mystery remains unsolved: just how do you make love to a mermaid?

Yuyi isn't the only alter-ego to make a cameo. Jo Calderone -- Gaga's male personality, who graces the single cover art to "You and I" -- shows up to drink beer and hang around Gaga's upright piano in the middle of a field. Then Gaga makes out with Gaga. Bjork: You're not alone. While she has the Elvisian look down (side note: RIP The King, 34 years gone), I don't think she makes for a very good dude. Too twitchy.

The requisite dance breakdown occurs in the barn, plus Gaga prances around in a witchy rucksack get-up with other purported Midwesterners. It's a dark, and typical death-meets-sex scenario for the pop star, with exception to that latter scenario where fun bits of humor trickle through the dark narrative.

If only "You and I" were a dark song. It is not. This is a fundamental mismatch of audio and visual, though I love some of the places she allows herself to go in both. The "Mutt" Lange-produced, Brian May-featuring, Queen-sampling track is a roots rock song at it's core, a branching out from the usual dance-pop that's dominated Gaga's albums. And she rubs some dirt -- real dirt, not shiny, sheened and preened dust -- into her wounds. "Bad Romance" this is not, but at least it's not "Edge of Glory."

And are you still confused as to why there's an umlaut in "Yoü?" The track was written for Gaga's former beau and longterm love, Lüc Carl.

"You and I" is the fourth single from "Born This Way," released earlier this year.