Lady Gaga Says Michael Polansky Love Story Inspired ‘Blade of Grass’

Lady Gaga ends Mayhem with love. On Friday, the pop singer will release her seventh studio album, Mayhem. On a recent call with Rolling Stone ahead of the album, she shared that the second-to-last song, “Blade of Grass,” is a track she wrote after her engagement to fiancé Michael Polansky last spring.

“I wrote it after Michael proposed to me. The song was about a memory that I had of us standing in the backyard and he said, ‘When I propose to you, what am I supposed to do?’” Gaga says. “And I said, ‘You can just wrap a blade of grass around my finger in the backyard. And I’ll say yes.’”

The sweet moment from Polansky — who later asked her to marry him in April 2024 after a day of rock-climbing — revived some grief for Gaga, too. “It was the memory of the past haunting me and the loss of friends, the loss of loved ones. I had a friend that got married in my backyard, who died of cancer,” Gaga says, referring to her friend and managing director of Haus of Gaga, Sonja Durham, who died in 2017. “I was remembering that this happy moment and this happy thing in my life was happening in a place where it was bittersweet. I was reflecting on that too.”

Gaga describes “Blade of Grass” as having “a lot more eerie and tense” energy and more “ominous chords” than “Die With a Smile,” which ultimately closes Mayhem. It’s all intentional. “‘Die With A Smile’ is really hopeful and dreamy and classic, and that’s where the mayhem ultimately does end,” the singer says. “The beauty of the album is that the Mayhem doesn’t repeat, it actually ends.”

Polansky has been a throughline for Mayhem. As Gaga started promoting the record, she told Vogue it was Polansky who ultimately encouraged her to “make a new pop record.” (Polansky is even credited as a co-writer on “Disease.”)  “On the Chromatica tour, I saw a fire in her,” Polansky told the magazine. “I wanted to help her keep that alive all the time and just start making music that made her happy.”