Gaga: The Conductor of Ghosts
She doesn’t just perform songs — she summons them.
Lennon sits at the piano.
Bowie flickers in the lighting grid.
Stevie’s groove hums under the keys.
Gaga steps in and:
* bends time
* borrows voices
* returns them louder
Not tribute.
Temporary possession.
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Breadcrumbs
• Gaga has performed “Imagine,” “Stand by Me,” “I Wish,” and “Heroes” across major global stages, repeatedly stepping into canonical songbook territory.
• Her Bowie Grammy tribute (2016) positioned her not just as fan, but as inheritor of theatrical pop lineage.
• These performances often strip production down — piano, voice — before rebuilding scale in later acts.
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Simon Frith, Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).
David Buckley, Strange Fascination: David Bowie: The Definitive Story (London: Virgin Books, 2005).
