Vertimus

Totally, but it's not Americans per se, it's certainly not the majority. It's the small but loud minority of 'Woke' or, as someone here once brilliantly called them, the 'fake Woke people' who see a chance to get attention and so stand in the town square and make accusations about everything to anyone.

Exactly. Lana's adopted more personas in her songs and life than probably any other contemporary musical artist, as many really don't adopt personas the way Lana does and Madonna did in her heyday.

And hundreds of thousands or millions of people do, just as others are 'Anglophiles' or 'Francophiles' or love what they perceive as the romance of Italian culture, or the perceived subtly and nuance of Japanese culture, or the paradisiacal aspects of Hawaiian culture. You may be moved by a documentary about an isolated people living in rain forests. Look at all the people who now travel to Barcelona from all over the world. There's nothing insulting or appropriative about it. Imagine a Chinese student coming to attend college in the U.S. and someone saying, "Quit appropriating and embracing our culture as if it's your own!' It's nonsense. I live in NYC, and you often see Asian-Americans who have adopted the 'preppie' look, which did originate in American Anglo-Saxon culture. Big deal. It's theirs to 'adopt' if they so desire--especially if they attended Columbia university or one of the Ivy League colleges, which many do or have.

Exactly, 111. As if there's a script of very limited scope from which she must take her subject matter...is this the 1950s all over again, when women could only sing songs like 'Shrimp Boats'? I love 'Shrimp Boats,' but every and any individual is free to write about absolutely anything as far as I am concerned. So here's 'American Whore' in your face, fascists!

I agree completely. Many of the artists I really love and who have influenced and guided my life write from a 'negative' pole: Nico's masterful 70s solo and 80s work, the Velvet Underground, Marianne Faithful, Leonard Cohen, the Patti Smith Group, Patti's solo work, the Stones. I will never understand people who only want an Olivia Newton-John | Doris Day | Starland Vocal Band sort of world where there's bright, but plastic, flowers everywhere. To me, those are hard 'feeling types' who have no strength to look life in the face, and accept all the good, and all the bad. That's why I love Lana: you get both sides of the coin, and in hearty servings. And that's why I love '13 Beaches,' 'Live Or Die,' 'Last Girl on Earth,' 'Gods & Monsters,' 'Cola,' 'Heroin' and now 'A&W.'

That's true from the 5 songs I've heard, and, for me, it's not a plus, but perhaps after songs 'Beautiful' and 'Sweet Carolina,' both of which I like but perceive as very simple, she felt she needed to experiment and really spread her wings.

A-men. As I pointed out yesterday, Bob Dylan wrote a very pointed and nasty song about a gay man, and Joni Mitchell appeared in blackface on a late 70s album cover, but presumably because they're liberal icons, no one has cancelled them yet. On the contrary, Mitchell has absolutely been enthroned in the last five years, and, sadly, most of the people doing the enthroning don't even know most of her classic 70s music, they only know the Blue album and the songs 'Woodstock' and 'Big Yellow Taxi.' But everyone and their mother is jumping on the Mitchell bandwagon. I'm not saying her classic 70s work wasn't amazing; it was.

Exactly. And they will. As if individuals from all cultures and backgrounds don’t share in and enjoy the products of multiple cultures, both those physically near and physically far away. Poems, novels, translations, biographies, songs, television programs, movies, inventions, hard knowledge, architecture, words, slang, religions, concepts, general knowledge, foods, holidays… A-men, and poor (not economically poor) purely stupid people.

It could merely be a narrator of the song, or a persona, like those she’s trafficked in before. Just as we don’t know whether the narrator of ‘A&W’ is wholly or partially Lana, or just a character she’s created.

If you can buy, make, and/or eat tacos, you should be able to sing about them too. It’s not as if mentioning tacos in a song or song title is the same thing as claiming you are Mexican or of Mexican descent. Lana lives in Southern California, there are taco trucks and taco restaurants everywhere. No doubt she’s eaten a few and maybe made some at home too.

Thank you. I would prefer it without the distracting intro.

Me too.

Thank you!

But some members are saying they’ve heard Taco Truck (or 🌮 🛻) and ‘Grandpa’ too.

Sorry, thanks!

That’s a pretty line, bit of melody, and ‘hook.’

I don’t know what’s to come with the rest of the album, but having heard 5 tracks from it, it doesn’t sound like a touring album to me so far. I can’t see her singing ‘The Grants,’ ‘A&W’ or ‘Fingertips’ live or the audience singing along.

It’s a global village and EVERYONE samples and borrows from everyone else. There’s no particular group or individual that is free from this. If cultures somehow had sole rights and ownership of everything they perceive under their umbrella, then we wouldn’t see the proliferation of food, clothing, hairstyles, manners of speech, accents, trends, slang usage, etc. Bob Dylan wrote a very nasty song about a gay man in the 1960s—‘Ballad of a Thin Man’—and Joni Mitchell posed in blackface on the cover of her late 70s album, ‘Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter,’ and neither have been cancelled; I have never even seen either brought up. Is it because they’re liberal icons? Who knows. Not that I am for ‘canceling’ as a social trend. So I doubt Lana could be or would be cancelled for singing in Spanish or with a Spanish accent, or calling herself Lanita. After all, her stage name is broadly Hispanic/Spanish/Latin, and she said it was recommended to her by Cuban friends in Miami!