Every kid wanted to be Mister Rogers’ neighbor — including Lady Gaga.
In a Super Bowl ad for Redfin and Rocket posted on Tuesday, Jan. 27, the “Bad Romance” songstress put her own spin on the theme song for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
In the clip, which was filmed in black and white at Shangri-La Studios, Gaga shared why she wanted to reimagine “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” which was originally performed by Fred Rogers.
“I just think about my earliest memories as a kid watching Mister Rogers, and I think about how much he meant to people, especially kids at home,” Gaga, 39, said of Rogers, who died in 2003. “So I feel like this just needs to be very heartfelt and kind and warm.”
In the clip, Gaga toys with the arrangement until she finds the perfect pitch for the song.
To the “Abracadabra” singer, Rogers was someone who “stood for something” — and she wondered “what he would would say right now.”
“It’s kind of a special song to revisit at this time,” Gaga said. “It was interesting to create something really heartfelt that keeps the purity and beauty of the original version but does it in a new way.”
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which was a children’s educational show, aired from 1968 to 2001 on PBS.
Gaga’s involvement in the Super Bowl ad comes amid her world tour, which is in support of her latest studio album Mayhem.
The singer-songwriter released Mayhem in March and it features 14 tracks total.
In a press release for the LP, Gaga said it was about returning to her roots in a new way. “The album started as me facing my fear of returning to the pop music my earliest fans loved,” she said.
She also added that the album’s style is similar to “reassembling a shattered mirror: even if you can’t put the pieces back together perfectly, you can create something beautiful and whole in its own new way.”
Mayhem is Gaga’s latest release after The Fame (2008), The Fame Monster (2009), Born This Way (2011), Artpop (2013), Joanne (2016) and Chromatica (2020). She has also released two collaborative albums with Tony Bennett, Cheek to Cheek (2014) and Love for Sale (2021). Additionally, she’s sang on four soundtrack albums: A Star Is Born (2018), Top Gun: Maverick (2022), Harlequin (2024) and Joker: Folie à Deux (2024).
