Lady Gaga Drops New Track ‘The Dead Dance,’ Featured In Netflix’s ‘Wednesday’
The new song arrives with a music video directed by Tim Burton.
Lady Gaga, “Mother Monster” herself, has gone gothic with the release of her new song and video, “The Dead Dance.” The track was written for the second season of Netflix’s Wednesday, where Gaga makes a cameo appearance as the ghostly professor Rosaline Rotwood.
Continuing their collaboration, Wednesday’s own Tim Burton directed the black and white video for “The Dead Dance,” in a true fusion of the two artists’ creative sensibilities. Gaga appears as a cracked porcelain doll come to life, dancing through an eerie, marionette-filled forest. Burton told Netflix’s Tudum that the project came together naturally: “I’ve been a fan of her work for a long time,” he explained. “She makes great music, and she’s a great actress, so for me it was very easy. She’s a real artist, and I’m grateful for what she contributed to the show.”
Gaga’s association with Wednesday began during the show’s first season, where fans on TikTok paired the dance Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) originally performed to The Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck” with the Born This Way track “Bloody Mary.” The song saw a massive boost in popularity, despite having been released a decade earlier.
Gaga debuted “The Dead Dance” at the Wednesday Graveyard Gala event ahead of the release of the season’s second half. At the Gala, she told Tudum: “the inspiration for ‘The Dead Dance’ was a breakup, and it was all about the way that we sometimes feel when it’s over; how a relationship ending can kill our ability to feel hopeful about love. It’s got this really cool, funky beat underneath it. And that is when the song becomes not just about the relationship; it becomes about having fun with your friends when you’ve been through something tough and amazing. I can’t wait for people to listen to it.”
“The Dead Dance” was produced by Gaga with Mayhem collaborators Andrew Watt and Cirkut. The track has been added to an extended version of Mayhem, alongside the previously unavailable songs “Can’t Stop the High” and “Kill for Love.”
