Vertimus

I did. I thought so too for a short while. The orchestra really overwhelms LDR’s voice after the midpoint in the real version. It SOUNDS as if it were put together in pieces. Still, okay.

Thank you, GLF. I assume the ‘male choir’ could be the players and/or fans? I hear no choir at all in the 3:12 version.

I don’t hear a male choir; I must have heard the wrong version. Is the right version 3:12 minutes?

Does it have pronounced ‘tinkling’ piano? I’m trying to find the legitimate studio version.

It’s not really a football anthem. It’s a classic Broadway show tune.

Ah, great, RD, many thanks--something to look forward to.

So is the acapella version we’ve already heard what is supposed to be released in a few days? Or is there going to be a studio version??

I like 'In My Feelings' very much, but don't care at all for the other two.

I like some of those, but for me, 'Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood' is the low point in LDR's career.

The original 'California Dreaming,' like 'Season of the Witch,' is such a perfect rock classic, or a product, at least, the the classic rock era, that I'm not convinced LDR could pull it off. I don't think she really pulled of 'Season of the Witch'; her version was just a dry run-through. It would be like trying to cover 'Hotel California' or 'Stairway to Heaven.' No matter how good an interpretation, it's going to pale beside the original, unless the interpretation and arrangement are wildly different from the original, the way Tori Amos radically deconstructed songs she covered, from 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' to Steely Dan's 'Do It Again' and the Velvet Underground's 'New Age.' I find LDR's covers only good about 40% of the time, though 'Summertime' has given me new hope. On this record, I hope she sticks to material pre-1960, or post-1960s songs that were still somewhat in the pre-1960s style (that is, non-rock, non-folk), like the beautiful 'The Shadow of Your Smile,' which I would love to see her cover.

I understand all of that. That's why I said it was a camp classic from the get-go. It thinks it's coy and cute, but it's too overt and tongue-in-cheek for my taste. I think personally, as a song, it's obvious and stupid, I don't like the melody, and so don't care for any version. So I would hate to see Lana descend to that. However, I do think it could be covered in a sincere manner if that was the way the artist wants to approach it. Most standards can be sung be interpreted in a wide variety of ways, like 'My Funny Valentine,' which can be sung as a 50s cocktail ditty, or in a somber, serious manner, as Nico approached it in the 60s when she was singing live at the Dom, or again when she recorded it on 'Camera Obscura' in the early 80s.

‘In My Room’ would be fantastic. Another over-performed standard I hope she doesn’t do: ‘My Heart Belongs To Daddy,' which began its life as camp and has been nothing but camp since. I presume it could be performed in a manner that is heartfelt and 'genuine,' but I don't know of any singer who has sung it that way. And the melody is rather tiresome.

It’s not a standard from the ‘Golden Age,’ but it is a classic from the American folk era. I would rather she record it for another album, perhaps the oft-mentioned, mythical ‘Pacific Ocean Blue.’

'Cry Me A River,' 'Autumn Leaves,' and Moon River' have been covered to death, so I hope LDR doesn't include those. I admit that 'Summertime' has also been covered to death, and yet she pulled it off magnificently. I would much rather see her tackle less well-known standards like 'Laura,' 'Skylark,' 'The Shadow of Your Smile,' 'Love Is A Many-Slendored Thing,' 'How Deep Is The Ocean,' 'Last Night When We Were Young,' 'Once Upon A Time' and, perhaps from the folk era, 'The Green Leaves of Summer,' Tim Buckley's 'Song To A Siren' or the Kingston Trio's 'All My Sorrows. What she includes of Patsy Cline I hope are not the overly-familiar Cline tunes, such as 'Walking After Midnight,' 'The Wayward Wind,' 'Crazy,' or 'I Fall To Pieces.'

But YNWA is from the Broadway musical 'Carousel,' and is an American standard--everyone has covered it, from Mahalia Jackson and Elvis Presley to Doris Day.

And if she does well with this, as it seems she will on the basis of the wonderful 'Summertime,' this album could open an entirely new avenue for her and really broaden her audience. Another track I'd love to see on the album is the jazz standard 'Laura'. "Laura is the face in the misty light... Footsteps that you hear down the hall The laugh that floats on a summer night That you can never quite recall. And you see Laura on a train that is passing through Those eyes how familiar they seem... She gave your very first kiss to you That was Laura but she's only a dream. She gave your very first kiss to you That was Laura... But she's only a dream."

If it is, while a little clunky, at least it tells her wide audience that they're not going to be getting a 'typical' LDR experience, but something else. When records and CDs predominated, the record companies could just slap a dayglo label over the plastic that says, "Lana Del Rey interpreting America's great historical catalog," and the actual album could therefore be called anything. I really don't mind if it is called AS&C. Is 'You'll Never Walk Alone' actually a track from it, or was that recorded for another project? Didn't I see something about that being recorded for a project in Great Britain? I'd love to see a fully-produced studio version of YNWA. It would seemingly fit right into AS&C. I'd also love to see covers of ''Round Midnight' and Cole Porter's 'So In Love.' 'The Green Leaves of Summer' would also be perfect for her--and another 'summer' song.

Fantastic job! If the rest is done in this ‘genuine Americana’ style, I am all for it.

Not too much enthusiasm for this project, judging by the fact that it’s only generated 9 pages of posts.

This is 100% correct. These are the songs sung originally, or covered by, the likes of Ruth Etting, Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, Julie London, Perry Como and Ella Fitzgerald, among many others, and more recently covered by Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Linda Ronstadt, Rod Stewart, Rickie Lee Jones, Marianne Faithfull and others. LDR has already covered at least one Peggy Lee song, though not on an album. But still, today, 'standards' can mean anything, including the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.

"To say she sounds like she's on auto-pilot mode on both TJF & LMLYLAW snippets would be the understatement of the century." " I've only heard a snippet of TJF, so I can't comment on that, but, despite his strong wording, I agree with Jared about LMLYLAW. It's so insubstantial that it's barely there. There's very little melody, and that little bit of melody is then repeated throughout the song. It's not substantial, it's not dramatic, it's not weighty, it's not catchy, it's not beautiful. The melody isn't developed the way the melody was for, say, Video Games. That's how I hear it. Yes, I know LMLYLAW is probably exactly what LDR wanted and intended it to be.

I don't appreciate the song much. For me, it's just sort of there, without much dynamic, and is over before it gets going. It definitely sounds like it could have been a 'NFR' outtake, or a continuation of that album. I rate it low compared to much of her other work, especially to recently linked tracks like 'Living Legend,' 'Serene Queen,' 'I Talk to Jesus' and 'Thunder.' I really hope the rest of the album is more dynamic and melodic.

Thanks. LDR is working her way towards additional self knowledge, self mastery and objectivity, but it takes time, work and effort. Most solipsistic people probably are not that way by choice, it’s either just their nature or the result of trauma and injury—the latter, most often, IMO.

VBBOTG is definitely solipsistic, but many or most artists are, if their work deals with the inner life at all. Bob Dylan, Nico, Marianne Faithfull, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Sting, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Patti Smith, Tori Amos, Jeff Buckley, Twenty One Pilots..the inner landscape is par for the course, and certainly fair game. LDR is clearly still making her way in the world and finding her way...from the books she’s posted on IG, we know she’s not reading ‘essential texts’ but rather watered-down works which present the ideas of other, greater writers in a more palatable manner, books meant for the general reader or non-reader. And that’s fair too. Everything in its own time.

For me, VBBOTG IS neither good nor bad. Since the 1950s, when ‘free form’ and ‘confessional’ poetry began, anything not written in paragraph form is and can be considered poetry, and this an example of both free form and confessional poetry. In terms of language, it’s a little too conversational for my taste. I’m glad for LDR that she succeeded at getting it done and launching this aspect of her career.