In a Super Bowl packed with noise, fireworks, and billion-dollar spectacle, Lady Gaga is choosing tenderness. And somehow, that hits harder.
For Super Bowl LX on February 8 in Santa Clara, where the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots will face off and Bad Bunny owns the halftime stage, Gaga appears in a commercial for Redfin and Rocket Mortgage. Her weapon of choice? A cover of the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood theme song, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”
Yeah. That song. The one that taught half the planet how kindness sounds.
In a teaser clip, Gaga delivers a piano-led, stripped-back version that feels less like a nostalgic wink and more like a quiet emotional reset. It’s soft. It’s balladic. It’s pure Gaga, but in monk mode.
“Mr. Rogers was so clearly someone who stood for something,” she says in the behind-the-scenes footage. “It’s powerful to think of what he would say right now.”
And that line alone tells you everything. This isn’t camp. This isn’t ironic. This is Gaga taking a cultural relic and asking a very 2026 question: can kindness still be radical?
If you think a children’s theme song can’t carry emotional weight, Gaga disagrees. Her version reframes “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” like an overlooked standard, the kind of tune that belongs next to Gershwin or Porter when treated with care.
Recorded at Shangri-La Studio in Malibu with longtime collaborator Benjamin Rice, the song is built around piano and voice. Nothing flashy. Just intention. At one point, Gaga debates whether to sing it in the original key or lift it higher. Of course she lifts it. Drama is her native language.
Rice describes the original song as “a simple melody with really complex chords,” which is low-key the perfect description of Fred Rogers himself. Gentle on the surface. Deep if you actually listen.
Here’s the spicy part. In 2026, does “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” accidentally become a protest song?
Gaga doesn’t spell it out, but she doesn’t need to. In a cultural climate that’s tense, polarized, and exhausted, revisiting a song about empathy and human connection feels… pointed. Not loud. Not aggressive. Just devastatingly sincere.
This is protest without slogans. Resistance without rage. A reminder that being kind is still a choice, and sometimes a rebellious one.
Rocket Mortgage knows what it’s doing. They’ve turned emotional storytelling into a Super Bowl sport, winning Ad Meter before with Anna Kendrick and Tracy Morgan, and last year tapping John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
Now they’ve leveled up. Gaga plus Mr. Rogers is a cultural cheat code.
It’s nostalgia, artistry, and moral clarity wrapped into 60 seconds.