I never forgot what he stood for

Lady Gaga has revealed that the late John Lennon would be her dream collaborator.

To celebrate the release of her new album ‘Mayhem’, the pop icon hosted her own fan-led ‘Mayhem’ press conference. One of the questions asked by a fan was about her dream collaborator, dead or alive.

“I think it would have been John Lennon. I think he had such a beautiful heart and I think that’s one of my favourite things in like the history of music is when you don’t just remember an artist for their music but you remember them for their heart,” she said.

She also showed her peace sign tattoo that she has on her wrist and shared: “This peace sign was right outside 72nd street by the Dakota, where he was sadly taken from the world, but the peace sign was there every day and Yoko would put flowers outside, I got this tattoo because of that. I never forgot what he stood for and it’s what I stand for too.”

Gaga previously compared herself to the ‘Imagine’ hitmaker in an NME cover story back in 2011 by saying that she struggles to ever be completely happy with her songs.

“I am perpetually unhappy with what I create,” she said. “Even though I might tell you that ‘Edge Of Glory’ is a pop masterpiece, when it’s all said and finished there will be things I dread, and every time I listen to it I’ll hear them.”

Gaga added: “In John Lennon‘s [1980] Playboy interview he talked about how he hated certain songs because of the way they were finished. And they might be my favourite songs, but Lennon couldn’t listen to them.”

In 2012, the ‘Born This Way’ hitmaker was awarded the Lennonono Grant For Peace by Yoko Ono. She also performed a cover of ‘Imagine’ at the opening of the inaugural European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan back in 2015.

That same year, she was linked to Lennon’s former Beatles bandmate Sir Paul McCartney as the two were working on a song for the film High in the Clouds which is based on Macca’s 2005 children’s book of the same name.

She had previously revealed that they had been working together when she posted an Instagram picture of the pair – along with Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready – in the studio together.

Gaga also posted a solo picture of her and McCartney and recalled how the pair ended up collaborating. “Always a good time with my buddy,” she wrote. “I’ll never forget when he called me last year to work and I hung up the phone cuz I thought it was a prank!”

Elsewhere, Gaga’s highly anticipated seventh album ‘Mayhem‘ arrived today (March 7) after months of speculation. It follows on from 2020’s ‘Chromatica’ and her Joker: Folie a Deux companion record ‘Harlequin’ which was released last year.

‘Mayhem’ was given a four-star review from NME, and described as a record that sees the pop icon “dial everything up to 11”.

“There’s a nonchalant confidence in the way Gaga sticks to her maximalist vision without pandering to contemporary pop trends. Most ‘Mayhem’ tracks run close to or over four minutes, making them mini-epics in the TikTok era,” it read.

“Ultimately, ‘Mayhem’ feels like a great Gaga album because it’s just so much fun. At times, it’s a bit like reconnecting with an old friend who makes sense even when they seem to be chatting nonsense,” it added. “Seventeen years after she broke through with ‘Just Dance’, Lady Gaga remains pop’s foremost agent of impeccably crafted chaos.”

In other news, fans have been speculating that Gaga’s song ‘How Bad Do U Want Me?’ from her new album may possibly have a secret appearance from Taylor Swift.

Lady Gaga has also delighted fans in Mexico by announcing that she will be performing in the country for the first time in 13 years. The pop icon will be taking over the Estadio GNP Seguros in Mexico City on April 26, and it is expected to see multiple songs performed from the ‘Mayhem’ tracklist.

The news of that show arrived shortly after the ‘Paparazzi’ hitmaker announced that she would be performing a monumental free show to over a million fans at Copacabana Beach in Rio.