Lady Gaga salutes 'Wizard of Oz' in 'Applause' performance

By Randy Lewis

Sept. 9, 2013 10:32 AM PT

Toto, we’re definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Lady Gaga looked to “The Wizard of Oz” for her appearance Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” performing the single wearing a blue and white gingham dress a la Dorothy Gale and accompanied by a Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion as well as one of the classic 1939 film’s flying monkeys.

She opened singing a couple of verses from “Over the Rainbow,” and later switched to a Glinda the Good Witch dress before stripping down to a black leotard for her battle to defeat the Wicked Witch of the West.

“I think it really is an explanation, in a way, for my entire career so far, even with the VMAs’ performance and the transformations that were happening today,” she said when she returned to discuss the performance and plug her “ARTPop” album due Nov. 11.

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“It’s like my way of saying all of these outfits and all of these wigs that I have been changing in all of these years, this is my way of assimilating and this is my way of surviving,” she said. “This is my way of getting to Oz, of getting to Oz to have all my dreams come true.”

Here’s the clip of her performance: