Lady Gaga contains multitudes. After taking home the artist of the year award at Sunday’s 2025 MTV VMAs and then sprinting to Madison Square Garden for a Mayhem Ball date that turned into stunning VMA performances of “Abracadabra”” and her latest single, “The Dead Dance,” Gaga popped into The Late Show on Monday night (Sept. 8) to transmogrify one of her Mayhem tracks.
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Seated at a piano, Gaga completely re-imagined “Vanish Into You” into a spare, chilling ballad as her accompanists plucked out thrumming notes on their guitar and bass and she gripped the mic, eyes close, pouring her soul into the track’s love-drenched lyrics. “High on a hill you call/ Two lovers regret their time/ Once in a blue moon I forget you/ And once in your life you’ll be mine,” she sang over the spare backing, which completely stripped away the original song’s thumping beat and chilled disco bounce.
The song written by Gaga along with producer Andrew Watt, Henry Walter and her fiancé, Michael Polansky — and produced by Gaga with Watt and Cirkut — is a plea to be recognized by her lover, with Gaga asking, “Do you see me/ Do you see me now?/ I’ve been waiting for you crying out/ Do you see me?/Do you see me now?”
As the tempo picked up and she finally laid her hands on the piano, Gaga’s voice rose to a crescendo, picking up an added, gritty urgency as she wailed, “In the summertime, we were happy just to be alive/ Can I… I vanish into you?”
Gaga’s Mayhem Ball tour will continue on Wednesday night (Sept. 10) with the first of three show at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.
Watch Gaga perform “Vanish Into You” on The Late Show below.
