“Die With A Smile” was released on Aug. 16, 2024, after only being teased for a day prior.
Although Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga are known for their distinct styles of music, this collaboration goes in a direction both pop stars have rarely ventured into, soft rock which Mars has popularized with his band, Silk Sonic.
The two artists only collaborated once in 2016 at a Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, but Mars expressed in June of this year that he wanted to be a part of Gaga’s residency in Las Vegas.
This new song perfectly represents what it is like to love someone and be scared to lose them. The main chorus line, “I wanna hold you just for a while and die with a smile,” depicts a couple that would rather die with each other than die separately.
Mars and Gaga created “Die With A Smile” along with songwriters including two-time Grammy-winning Song of the Year producer D’Mile, Grammy-winning writer Andrew Watt and “24K Magic” Grammy-winning producer James Fauntleroy. The talent behind the song lends itself to its quality, increasing its Grammy potential.
Not only is the song lyrically strong, but the combination of Gaga and Mars is seamless. The blend of Mars’ and Gaga’s voices opens a world where pop and soul can merge and become a modern genre that remains electric.
The second pre-chorus starts with “Wherever you go, that’s where I’ll follow. Nobody’s promised tomorrow,” in which the artists sing together for the first time and harmonize perfectly.
For an instrumentally simple song, the rhythms take off in the bridge with a guitar solo that is intensified in post-recording, mix engineering. This is the peak of the song, where the final chorus shines and leads into just the lead vocals and guitar with the line “I wanna be next to you“.
The song has appealed to a variety of age demographics. Teenagers use the song on TikTok to describe their youth whereas older listeners are looking back on their lasting love with the lyrics “If the world was ending, I wanna be next to you“.
Gaga recognized the appreciation of the song in her most recent Instagram post saying, “Watching fans from all over the world celebrate this music has meant so much to me…the power of music is big and your love of this song reminded me of that.”
However, not everyone agrees with the line “Our love is the only war worth fighting for,” as they take it as a dig towards the Israel-Hamas war.
Although this song can be interpreted in many different ways, the underlying theme is spending time with those you love before life ends.
