bummersummer

i'm sad to say this, but she definitely falls somewhere among "minimization" & "veiled racism" in this pyramid.
 

 
you (general you) have to understand that racism doesn't just happen out of malicious hatred, it can be born out of ignorance and/or sheltered privilege  - and i definitely think that's her case. if so many poc are saying she's racist, it's for a reason & we (this we applies to white people) need to primarily listen to their voices here.
 
any white person is racist, or has been in the past - how could we not, we were raised in a system that upholds and teaches white supremacy. unlearning that is something we have to actively do all our lives, and the most disappointing thing for me re: lana is not that she falls into some of the behaviors above out of ignorance, but that she refuses to listen and learn and keeps reacting/responding from a haughty defensive place while making the same mistakes over and over.

why does she keep doing this to us!!! 

why does she keep doing this to us!!! 

probably the least dangerous thing she's ever done in a car

i truly don't understand why anyone would mention May Jailer in relation to Venice Bitch, or even remotely compare the two. Sirens was stripped down, acoustic, almost lo-fi music that owed almost exclusively to folk. Venice Bitch is a drone-y, multilayered & full of distortion song that owes to psychedelia, shoegaze, dream pop. they are NOTHING alike. to say VB is a regression to May Jailer era is honestly laughable.

the coke spoon necklace

the coke spoon necklace

the coke spoon necklace

the coke spoon necklace

the coke spoon necklace

"Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander
 
a lot of v good, poetic quotes in that whole book 

Lana is my top artist every year. Every. Single. Year. I want a present or something. 

i wish this thread hadn't died, there's so much interesting stuff here already but so much is also missing... it should have almost as many pages as lanalysis, since it gives us so much insight into lana's interests & consequently her as a person imo.
 
anyway, trying to revive this with some NFR related content, i guess...
 
Robert Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" - possibly via The Outsiders too? this part is obv speculation, but it seems like the kind of thing she'd like & reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOwPaC3ZaQQ
 
Slim Aarons & his photos of celebrities, socialites and luxurious/ostentatious lifestyles in general; he's also noted for the poolside setting of many of this photos.
 
Sylvia Plath, ofc. namely this poem which references stumbling from bed in a victorian nightgown (ty Genius.com)  
now indulge me for a sec - and i honestly KNOW this is prob a stretch, but i was just having too much trying to connect the dots to not at least mention it: in How To Disappear, she mentions a John, a Jim, leaving NYC for California, a kid, California sun & movie stars. if it weren't for John & the kid, i would've just chalked it all down as regular Lana themes and imagery. BUT those 2 things made me wonder, and suddenly it all clicked: Joan Didion.

- i mean, she's THE iconic Cali writer and in another post i & Trash Magic wondered whether Lana had been inspired by Didion's famous Corvette photoshoot for the UV cover and promo pics

- anyone's who's watched the critically acclaimed "The Center Will Not Hold" Netflix doc knows Didion (a NorCal native) lived in NYC for a few years and then moved back to California - this happened after one morning she started crying out of nowhere while having breakfast with her husband John Gregory Dunne ("John met me down at the boulevard / I cried on his shoulder 'cause life is hard / The waves came in over my head") and he quickly realized that she missed Cali and both decided it was time to leave NYC (Well now, it's been years since I left New York); Didion's also a noted anxious-depressive.

- she's known for having written an essay about Jim Morrison & The Doors recording at a studio in Sunset Blvd; she was already there when Jim arrived, late & presumably high; the band then stayed there a long time and the album they were recording took weeks to finish (Jim met me down at the training yard (training yard = metaphor for a studio?) (...) And I watched the guys getting high as they fight / For the things that they hold dear).

- now the really bizarre part for a Lana song: "'I've got a kid and two cats in the yard" - guess who had a kid? Didion, who adopted a girl around that same time and moved from HW to a big house in Malibu. no idea about the 2 cats, tho.

- also: "The California sun and the movie stars / And I watched the skies getting light as I write / As I think about those years" - Didion & her husband were screenplay writers and frequently had movie stars in their house; also Didion, beyond writing personal essays, also wrote at least 2 memoirs about her life so she'd def write "while thinking about those years")

ok so tl;dr: i don't think the song is about Didion, but i think it could be inspired by certain facts of her life that Lana might identify with or relate to (after all, she also went from NYC to LA, has a dark temperament, lives or lived in Malibu, considers herself a writer & is obsessed with a lot of the themes Didion dealt with in her writing). now call me delusional or inspired, but lemme hear your thoughts!!!

edit:

BONUS 1


BONUS 2

 

i wish this thread hadn't died, there's so much interesting stuff here already but so much is also missing... it should have almost as many pages as lanalysis, since it gives us so much insight into lana's interests & consequently her as a person imo.
 
anyway, trying to revive this with some NFR related content, i guess...
 
Robert Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" - possibly via The Outsiders too? this part is obv speculation, but it seems like the kind of thing she'd like & reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOwPaC3ZaQQ
 
Slim Aarons & his photos of celebrities, socialites and luxurious/ostentatious lifestyles in general; he's also noted for the poolside setting of many of this photos.
 
Sylvia Plath, ofc. namely this poem which references stumbling from bed in a victorian nightgown (ty Genius.com)  
now indulge me for a sec - and i honestly KNOW this is prob a stretch, but i was just having too much trying to connect the dots to not at least mention it: in How To Disappear, she mentions a John, a Jim, leaving NYC for California, a kid, California sun & movie stars. if it weren't for John & the kid, i would've just chalked it all down as regular Lana themes and imagery. BUT those 2 things made me wonder, and suddenly it all clicked: Joan Didion.

- i mean, she's THE iconic Cali writer and in another post i & Trash Magic wondered whether Lana had been inspired by Didion's famous Corvette photoshoot for the UV cover and promo pics

- anyone's who's watched the critically acclaimed "The Center Will Not Hold" Netflix doc knows Didion (a NorCal native) lived in NYC for a few years and then moved back to California - this happened after one morning she started crying out of nowhere while having breakfast with her husband John Gregory Dunne ("John met me down at the boulevard / I cried on his shoulder 'cause life is hard / The waves came in over my head") and he quickly realized that she missed Cali and both decided it was time to leave NYC (Well now, it's been years since I left New York); Didion's also a noted anxious-depressive.

- she's known for having written an essay about Jim Morrison & The Doors recording at a studio in Sunset Blvd; she was already there when Jim arrived, late & presumably high; the band then stayed there a long time and the album they were recording took weeks to finish (Jim met me down at the training yard (training yard = metaphor for a studio?) (...) And I watched the guys getting high as they fight / For the things that they hold dear).

- now the really bizarre part for a Lana song: "'I've got a kid and two cats in the yard" - guess who had a kid? Didion, who adopted a girl around that same time and moved from HW to a big house in Malibu. no idea about the 2 cats, tho.

- also: "The California sun and the movie stars / And I watched the skies getting light as I write / As I think about those years" - Didion & her husband were screenplay writers and frequently had movie stars in their house; also Didion, beyond writing personal essays, also wrote at least 2 memoirs about her life so she'd def write "while thinking about those years")

ok so tl;dr: i don't think the song is about Didion, but i think it could be inspired by certain facts of her life that Lana might identify with or relate to (after all, she also went from NYC to LA, has a dark temperament, lives or lived in Malibu, considers herself a writer & is obsessed with a lot of the themes Didion dealt with in her writing). now call me delusional or inspired, but lemme hear your thoughts!!!

edit:

BONUS 1


BONUS 2

 

i wish this thread hadn't died, there's so much interesting stuff here already but so much is also missing... it should have almost as many pages as lanalysis, since it gives us so much insight into lana's interests & consequently her as a person imo.
 
anyway, trying to revive this with some NFR related content, i guess...
 
Robert Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" - possibly via The Outsiders too? this part is obv speculation, but it seems like the kind of thing she'd like & reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOwPaC3ZaQQ
 
Slim Aarons & his photos of celebrities, socialites and luxurious/ostentatious lifestyles in general; he's also noted for the poolside setting of many of this photos.
 
Sylvia Plath, ofc. namely this poem which references stumbling from bed in a victorian nightgown (ty Genius.com)  
now indulge me for a sec - and i honestly KNOW this is prob a stretch, but i was just having too much trying to connect the dots to not at least mention it: in How To Disappear, she mentions a John, a Jim, leaving NYC for California, a kid, California sun & movie stars. if it weren't for John & the kid, i would've just chalked it all down as regular Lana themes and imagery. BUT those 2 things made me wonder, and suddenly it all clicked: Joan Didion.

- i mean, she's THE iconic Cali writer and in another post i & Trash Magic wondered whether Lana had been inspired by Didion's famous Corvette photoshoot for the UV cover and promo pics

- anyone's who's watched the critically acclaimed "The Center Will Not Hold" Netflix doc knows Didion (a NorCal native) lived in NYC for a few years and then moved back to California - this happened after one morning she started crying out of nowhere while having breakfast with her husband John Gregory Dunne ("John met me down at the boulevard / I cried on his shoulder 'cause life is hard / The waves came in over my head") and he quickly realized that she missed Cali and both decided it was time to leave NYC (Well now, it's been years since I left New York); Didion's also a noted anxious-depressive.

- she's known for having written an essay about Jim Morrison & The Doors recording at a studio in Sunset Blvd; she was already there when Jim arrived, late & presumably high; the band then stayed there a long time and the album they were recording took weeks to finish (Jim met me down at the training yard (training yard = metaphor for a studio?) (...) And I watched the guys getting high as they fight / For the things that they hold dear).

- now the really bizarre part for a Lana song: "'I've got a kid and two cats in the yard" - guess who had a kid? Didion, who adopted a girl around that same time and moved from HW to a big house in Malibu. no idea about the 2 cats, tho.

- also: "The California sun and the movie stars / And I watched the skies getting light as I write / As I think about those years" - Didion & her husband were screenplay writers and frequently had movie stars in their house; also Didion, beyond writing personal essays, also wrote at least 2 memoirs about her life so she'd def write "while thinking about those years")

ok so tl;dr: i don't think the song is about Didion, but i think it could be inspired by certain facts of her life that Lana might identify with or relate to (after all, she also went from NYC to LA, has a dark temperament, lives or lived in Malibu, considers herself a writer & is obsessed with a lot of the themes Didion dealt with in her writing). now call me delusional or inspired, but lemme hear your thoughts!!!

edit:

BONUS 1


BONUS 2

 

her hair looks sooooo much healthier now that it's darker! she really suits it, you don't realise how much you miss it til its gone.

Lana strengthening my theory with her insta pic of Jim & Pam, ha.

just read a post about how UV (song & video) could have been inspired by Jim Morrison & Pamela Courson's relationship, and a lot of it does make sense... other than what's mentioned there - getting together when she was 18 / 'Jim raised me up' + their complicated & often violent (due to his drinking) relationship / 'he hit me and it felt like a kiss' + her futile attempts at getting married / the lone bride theme from the video / 'loving him is never enough' - a few other things also fit:
- 'Jim brought me back' / 'I could have died right there' : hinting at her heroin dependence & overdoses?
- 'I can hear sirens, sirens' : she famously called the fire fighters & the police after founding him dead in the bathtub in their apartment in Paris
- 'yo soy la princesa' : Jim wrote many songs dedicated to Pam & in the most notable one, 'Queen of the Highway', he called her a princess
- the 'white lines' reference : they snorted heroin (China White) together, which was reportedly the cause of his death
- the only thing i can't quite figure out is the Woodstock reference, because The Doors never performed there & afaik Jim and Pam never attended
 
anyway, i also think the Source Family & other Manson-like cults theory makes a lot of sense, but i thought this was interesting nonetheless.

lana really said play stupid games, win stupid prizes!! you love to see it.

lana really said play stupid games, win stupid prizes!! you love to see it.

lana really said play stupid games, win stupid prizes!! you love to see it.

its always the white woke teenage girls who listen to btd only

This is so funny for me on a personal level. Like...  I'm not gonna say anything else on the subject, but just know this is the best thing that has happened that I've witnessed for the past several weeks x

just wanna preface this by saying: absolutely no shade towards you here, just sharing my 2 cents on this subject
 
i kinda hate the notion that kids slow artists down bc of how that almost exclusively applies to female artists; i mean, it never crossed anyone's mind that, idk, hemingway's or, like, mick jagger's careers would be slowed down due to having kids. i'm aware that that does sometimes happen when it comes to women -- some reevaluate their choices & start paying more attention to family than career, others are unable/unwilling to travel as much as before, etc. -- but i also think a big part of it is how motherhood changes our (public AND critics) perception of said women, and how themes associated with their new, more stereotypically "feminine", "softer" lives aren't deemed as interesting or worthy of being explored in art, and that really speaks to how patriarchally-driven all forms of art still are. lana has dealt with this issue all her career -- after all there's a reason why most of her fans are women and/or not straight -- but she managed to carve a niche for herself with a sort of bad/sad girl persona. a much more relevant "question for the culture" would have been why women are so limited re: what they can sing about once they reach a certain age without alienating 90% of their audience OR turning to MOR ~adult contemporary~ adèle-like music in order to keep selling. it's clear that she's struggling with something like this already (a lot of people complain that her music's too slow & contemplative now, with nearly no "bops", & even her die-hard fans complain that she doesn't pay as much attention to aesthetics/looks, don't like her more family&friends-oriented lifestyle, her move to the midwest (cop mistake notwithstanding), etc.) so it's something that must be on her mind to some extent. imo lana's "muse" has always been her personal life (both the real one & the one that goes on inside her head) and idk that she can just put it aside if she does eventually get married / have kids, so it'll be interesting to see how she'll reinvent herself then.
 
sorry for the tl;dr lol