Myriam

 

In the past 18 months, we have said everything, wrote everything, read everything and thought about everything concerning Lana Del Rey. .

And just for the sake of saying a bit more, let us add that we noticed a series of 'funny' events that's been happening to her:

In 2012, Lana Del Rey announced 2 times that she was going to stop her music career when in fact she didn’t. And her first album was released 2 times. The first time, in the beginning of the year, and entitled Born To Die. But she could have just called it “We Only Die Twice” (I really don’t understand what’s that about though lol).

It’s re-released today as a version called “The Paradise Edition” with 8 dazzling, beautifully voluptuous and lyrical new tracks wrapped in the strings of a symphonic orchestra - just like a tragic and delicate meeting between Roy Orbison and Alison Goldfrapp in a worn out Old Hollywood motel .

 

Even if we are unconsciously influenced by so much prejudice: let us admit that we were disappointed by the first version of Born To Die that reappears today as the purgatory Paradise Edition.

In one of the new tracks, Lana Del Rey sings “Elvis is my daddy, Marilyn’s my mother”. An ultimate provocation as she is dreaming of being the daughter of the two biggest myths of the pop era. And it’s not completely out of the blue. Lana Del Rey has a lot in common with her so called “daddy”. She looks like Priscilla Beaulieu, Elvis’ fiancée. And we can almost imagine her career as a reversed reflection of Elvis’ (a lanamorphosis?).

In the mid 50s, Elvis shocked strict America with his sensual gipsy look and his long ghetto capes. In 2011-2012, Lana Del Rey angers everyone (at least those who consider pop music solely as an artistic discipline) with her trashy dolls masks and her presumed and assumed absence of authenticity.

The myth of Elvis had ended and the good music had stopped once he decided to start filming movies in chains. As for Lana Del Rey, the opposite has happened: fascinating when we discovered her videos, she wasn’t very well received when her music came out. A simple CD, with a few warmed tracks, and out-of-date production, and the general impression that the music and the sound were less interesting and not as important as the visuals.

To sum things up: When we are craving Lana Del Rey, we go watch her videos rather than listen to her album.

 

She has, nonetheless, warned us with her first debut “Video Games” that her music is largely based on aesthetics, imagery and decadent Hollywood clichés. Just like in a David Lynch movie, the disturbed reinvention of anonymous pop-jazz singer Lizzy Grant resists to all the interpretations.

But it’s like everyone’s trying to find her new flaws, because she has sold albums. Born To Die is a commercial success.

 

A few months ago, Lana Del Rey became a new fighter in the world of commercialized pop music.

A few weeks ago, she was in Paris at “Salon de l’auto” for the presentation of the new Jaguar. She’s also the new face of H&M.

 

Do you have a clear view of what those past 12 months were like? Or is it just a big blurr?

I remember this ritual: going to sleep every night listening to the same songs, watching the same movies. I can also remember the rare moments where I would go back home to stay with my family.

In between those precious moments, the only thing recall is a frenzy and running errands. But I wanted it to be this way, I wanted to be involved in anything that concerned me, even if it’s just a small video for the cover of Vogue… This kind of projects makes me want to sink back in my imagination and that’s where I’m happiest. I’m very comfortable when I’m living in my own mind, my own inside world. The rest, I just have to live with it.

 

Does it hurt? The rest of it?

No, not at all. It’s just that I feel better here (points to her head)… I’ve always been like this, since I was very young, I’ve always been a loner, an introvert. At the age of 7, I began to redirect these thoughts to poems and short stories.

But I got really lucky was when I discovered philosophy, in school, when I was 14- an electif class that introduced me to my real passion and lead me to pursue my studies in metaphysics.

I used to adore English literature, but very quickly, literature was not enough to answer the huge questions.

I never stopped reading from authors like Nabokov and Ginsberg, though, the first ones that gave me the impression that you can actually paint so many images with words. I loved the idea of literary movements, and the existence of spiritual communities like in the times of Sartre and Camus. It seemed so distant and European.

 

Did you feel alone and isolated on the countryside of New York?

I used to dream about being a part of a spiritual community, I have searched for those people for so long. But I was excluded at school. Those friends I was seeking, I only found them with time, recently… People like my director Anthony Mandler or the composer Daniel Heath, who only work on music for movies but accepted to work with me.

 

Do you still read as much as you used to?

I can’t seem to stay focused on a book I haven’t read before. I sometimes listen to audio books, but otherwise, whether it’s with literature or music I have a tendency of constantly returning to a bunch of classics. The Master Key System by Charles Haanel is a book that I constantly need to get in touch with my creativity.

All those books have once helped me and I am convinced that they will help me each time: what once worked will always work!

And it’s the same thing for movies, I know I can count on the Godfather, Virgin Suicide, Scarface, American Beauty.. .

 

Do you count on these movies to cheer you up?

They are not the most joyful, but there’s so much beauty in them. And indeed, they help me get back on track… Same thing with music, I always go back to Nevermind – Niravana, it is without a doubt the only album. The rest is a list of 50 songs that I torture my entourage with, because I can literally live while listening to the same ones (she turns on her iTunes): Eagles, Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, Chris Isaak, Bruce Springsteen…

 

The Elvis song, it’s Edge Of Reality. Is that where you live?

Yes, that’s very true.

 

Were you faced this year, with strategic decisions you had to make but perhaps weren’t prepared for?

These decisions were derisory compared to the real choices I had to make in my life… They’re nothing in front of what I had to confront before. They don’t matter when I had to see people helplessly fall and die. The little troubles related to music are ridiculous: if I say yes, then it’s yes. If I say no, it’s no. Where’s the problem?

It doesn’t matter if the world hates me for stopping or proceeding my music career: all of this is not that big of a deal.

 

Where does this “distance” come from? This coldness?

For a very long time, I lived fully and dangerously… That’s why I would have preferred it if people didn’t attack me this violently. But I won’t be a crybaby about it. A lot of my friends are dead: it allows me put in perspective this bad chronicle. Even if it’s not fair for a music that’s so beautiful, that I listen to permanently, that I absolutely love- mostly sonically.

I’ve always made songs for my own pleasure, I used to be the only one that listened to them. They’re like the soundtrack of my life.

 

Born To Die is being re-released with 8 new tracks that totally rebalance it. However, it was rumored that you quit music?

I actually returned to the studios in New York just after Born To Die was out. Without any pressure, just because I didn’t know what to do with my days.

Each time I had a free weekend in Los Angeles, I used to go to a studio in Santa Monica, very influenced by the Pacific. Therefore, I had worked very slowly, for 7 or 8 months.

Some songs like Bel Air, that I love, came to me very quickly, naturally…

I had then started to compose for films, at home, away from everything, it opened new possibilities for me, away from the scenes.

During 10 years of my life, I’d been like that; erased, recluse, and I find this again in writing for cinema.

 

Concretely speaking, how do you write for cinema?

I’ll show you, it’ll be a lot easier.

I start with an acapella that I recored, alone at home, on my computer, on GarageBand, and then I let my arranger Daniel Heath listen to it (she lets us listen to a few minutes of a song that’s still in working: an acappella melody of an unbelievable purety. Her voices constantly changes ranges with a dazzling beauty. Her song, even if still ‘naked’, carries the track of the chords and arrangements.)

That’s what I give him, and I already start evoking which instruments and sounds we should add to it.

And then, that’s what he offers (we find the same song, but enhanced with symphonic chords and opulent piano arrangements; exactly what the first version was suggesting. It’s very astounding: you have the impression that the musical chords were already on the first naked acapella, when in fact they weren’t!)

My songs have a lot of information, even at a primary stage. And Daniel knows exactly how to translate my ideas.

 

Do you always think about the chords when you’re composing?

They are fundamental to me, I hear them in my head while I’m writing.

Chords and voice: that’s where I start. I listen to a lot of movies’ soundtracks, it’s in my DNA, like those of Giorgio Moroder or Thomas Newman…

Miraculously, even if I’m not a big musician, I always seem to acquire from my team what I had in mind. I explain everything in the smallest details and they understand the ambiance, the mood, the color that I’m searching for.

In Bel Air, I wanted the sound of children’s laughter in the park, but also rain: it symbolized the end of summer, the death of love, the collision of two worlds…

I adore the studio, that’s where I’m most meticulous and joyful. I would have loved to know more about the techniques because I rely on a sound engineer that frisks around with all these mysterious buttons.

Being independent in the middle of the night would be great. But I would miss team work.

 

The strength of these new songs lies in their vibes and ambiances. Unlike these of the album, you are not imposing hip hop beats that almost ruin them.

It’s a natural progress, I’m immersing into a more sixties ambiance, more Americana, more peaceful… I don’t feel like sending my songs to producers so they can add more beats to them … I want to keep them natural.

For example, I’ve never been pleased with the production on the album version of This Is What Makes Us Girls- but it’s the only one I’d work on again If I had the choice.

According to me, there’s clearly 2 albums on this new edition of Born To Die- the 8 new tracks form a new album that reflects what I am today. It’s always me, but without any makeup on.

 

In New York, your life seemed to be controlled by rituals. Do you have any new ones in Los Angeles?

I spend my life in my car. People in LA go to sleep early, and so the highway is mine, at night…

I go to Sunset Boulevard at around 2 in the morning, I go down towards the ocean, I take a walk and then I return.

In the morning, I get up early, I read the newspaper while drinking coffee and then I call my little brother and sister, everyday at the same exact time.

I depend on my rituals, they’re necessary when everything else fades away.

I also have rituals when I go visit my father in Florida. We go fishing, sailing in the Everglades. And then there’s walks in the Laurel Canyon, behind LA, still fluttering with the ghosts of the 60s. I can really feel the vibrations eversince I had my old convertible, the tragedy, the darkness…

 

Do ritual accompany your singing too?

I sing all the time. In front of my computer, or with my boyfriend (she starts singing an a cappella melody she had just written – Goosebumps)…

As there’s less production on the new songs, you can hear my voice better, the texture of it.

Maybe I’m taking less risks, but it’s a chant that says “I don’t fucking care anymore, I do whatever I want!”. A lot of the songs were created out of this free-style, like Body Electric, Summertime Sadness and Cola.

My music is very influenced by movies and cinema and it was only reasonable that I’d end up working with Hollywood musicians. They’re my rock.

 

Among these new songs, you chose to revive Yayo, one of the songs of your 2010 album under the name of Lizzy Grant. Will this album ever be re-released?

Like I did for Yayo, I would like to redo certain songs like Kill Kill and Mermaid Motel. They mean a lot to me, they are the most autobiographical out of all the songs, my sprees to Coney Island …

But I don’t like their production, I can’t re-release them as they are. I recorded them 6 years ago, an eternity… Yayo was a fundamental moment in my life, a trigger, my first video.

 

Did your parents support you in the beginning?

They used to be hippies, music was very present at home. And my father is a songwriter- for more country things. My mom sings in our church choir, where I used to sing - very nervously but with pleasure.

They were always behind me, even before the music, when I used to get in trouble.

I don’t drink anymore, but I used to drink a lot.

Many people have helped me 10 years ago, and that’s why I am so involved in helping people who want to get sober. Day and night, I visit centers with people recovering from alcohol addiction, like I was when I was 15 or 16. I am alive. I take advantage of every second of peace, every second of blare, every second of meditation, every second of company… I am so thankful to be alive. Every morning, I am thankful.

 

 

 

When Bradley went on that twitter rant about her a while back, he said she's off meth but heavily addicted to adderall (but he also mentioned that the meth addiction will definitely be coming back). And I know him IRL, he deals to my friends at Columbia. So I think she just traded vices.