DeadAgainst

"I am certainly of opinion that genius can be acquired" (Crowley)
 
Listening to Lana's early work, there is a marked transformation that occurs around 2007. On Sirens ca. 2005-2006, we have "diaristic" songs about life as it is; it is rightly called juvenilia. It is interesting to chart her development with her lyrics. One of the earliest tracks to show her new development is, appropriately, "Pawn Shop Blues"—its first performance was in May, 2006:
 
In the name of higher consciousness
I let the best man I knew go
'Cause it's nice to love and be loved
But it's better to know all you can know
Said it's nice to love and be loved
But I'd rather know what God knows

Oh-no, oh-no, oh-no, oh-no, oh-no
I can't do this once more
No man can keep me together
Been broken since I was born
 
So her mindset in this period is clear. She has entered a sort of seclusion to "know" God, in the Gnostic sense. 
 
Then in early 2007:
 
It's the voodoo Mississippi south
Sixty-nine million stars
Birds are comin' out of my mouth
Spirits creepin' in my yard
Oh, my head, it's tiltin' back
Something's dancin' me around
Puttin' crystals on my neck
Liftin' my toes off the ground, ah-ah-ahh, ground, ah-ha-ah-ah
Rai-rai-rai-raise me up
 
A great change in her lyrics is already seen; the imagery is rich and figurative. The Melancholia of "Pawn Shop Blues" is followed by a sort of resurrection—"Jim raised me up". Then a theme emerges:

I am my only God now
 
Baby, I have become someone
A monster, hey, yeah, yeah
Baby, I've become someone
Not of this world, hey, yeah, yeah (cf. "Maha Maha")
 
I remember we came in May
And we changed our names to Lana and Ray
 
Lizzy has become Lana Ray, someone not of this world; the truest expression of who she is "on the inside." Somewhere in this time period, she writes "Yayo," which she has said depicts a pivotal moment in her life. Its first performance is June 14, 2007, appropriately before a performance of "Pawn Shop Blues". When she re-records the song for Paradise, it is the connecting link between "Gods and Monsters" and "Bel Air"—the necessary transition from hell to heaven.
 
You have to take me right now
From this dark trailer park life now...
Hello, Heaven, you are a tunnel lined
With yellow lights on a dark night
 
Palm trees in black and white
Was the last thing I saw before I died
Bright light, right man
Right mixture of cocaine and heroin

All that's real to me is Marilyn and Jesus
Jumpin' off'a bridges, sparklers and streamers, honey
I wanna die (fly), I wanna die (fly), I wanna die (fly)
 
A death and rebirth. A jump into the Abyss. Visions of a tropical Paradise. The alchemical mixture of elements ("energies combined"); figuratively cocaine (white) and heroin (black?). Marilyn and Jesus, archetypal forms from an eternal reality.

You my Axl Rose husband
Blue hydrangea
White Pontiac Heaven
Me, your red, white, and blue girl
Star-spangled danger
 
Now a richly-textured archetypal interior world emerges, entirely her own: the white car in heaven (seen in the "West Coast" video). Lana as the embodiment of America. The pun of "heavy metal" and alchemical metals. The men she most adores now become figures of her Animus that represent the alchemical King in the coniunctio. "At night I fell asleep with visions of myself dancing and laughing and crying with them..."

You, my heavy metal king, king
I said, "Daddy, I need you" (Yes)
Greenwich, I need you
Strangled up in ivy
I'm the garden of Eden
Lady Liberty
Teal with flame I'm shinin'
Queen, queen
You're my one king, daddy
I'm your little queen, red, white, and blue
 
(Cf. 2009: You can be my higher power, baby
I can be your empress USA)
 
I can be your 4th of July
Gimme that, gimme that, gimme that crystal meth, love
Because
Feels like sugar in me
 
Lana, or the temple that is her body and heart, becomes America and the Garden of Eden as the fertile earth (an image repeated in "Arcadia") in which Paradise is revealed, figuratively impregnated by a deity or Animus figure. Says Crowley, the Empress "is fitted to represent one of the three alchemical forms of energy, Salt. Salt is the inactive principle of Nature; Salt is matter which must be energized by Sulphur to maintain the whirling equilibrium of the Universe." Crystal meth as the alchemical Elixir: "This liquor is the Amrita of the Indian philosophers, the Nepenthe and Ambrosia of the Greeks, the Alkahest and Universal Medicine of the Alchemists, the Blood of the Grail; or, rather, the nectar which is the mother of that blood" (Crowley). Refer again to "Paradise is Very Fragile":
 
But you taste like the beach and a kiss.
Candy from my eyes,
in my veins you run citrus.
Watercolor images of serpents on orange trees arise in my midst.
Kundalini, you breathe me.

Fast forward to 2009:
 
I got that magical trance potion
Gotta leave, I can't wait 'til I'm older
 
2012:
 
Gargoyles standing at the front of your gate (= "Spirits creepin' in my yard")
Trying to tell me to wait, but I can’t wait to see you
So I run like I'm mad to Heaven’s door
I don’t wanna be bad, I won’t cheat you no more
Roses, Bel Air
Take me there
I’ve been waiting to meet you
Palm trees in the light
I can see late at night
Darling, I’m waiting to greet you
Come to me, baby
Spotlight, bad baby, you’ve got a flair
For the violentest kind of love anywhere out there
 
A summation of her Work so far; the great reveal at the end of Paradise that the fallen girl in "Gods and Monsters" has already been redeemed, and asks others to follow her. Ultraviolence is foreshadowed. Violent love that offers resurrection. 
 
2014:
 
They say I'm too young to love you
I don't know what I need
They think I don't understand
The freedom land of the 70s
 
At about the age of 21, almost unheard of in someone so young, something happened to Elizabeth Grant; something that she will not discuss openly even now, as it is impossible to describe in straightforward words—"an obsession for freedom that terrified me to the point that I couldn't even talk about it." This something changed the whole of her life to such an extent that she changed her name, changed her hair to suit the truth of her new interior reality ("the mood of your soul"), and transformed her songwriting into allegorical poetry. I hope this provides some insight into the true depth of her art, even in the earliest material.
 
You never liked the way I said it
If you don't get it, then forget it
'Cause I don't have to fucking explain it

"I am certainly of opinion that genius can be acquired" (Crowley)
 
Listening to Lana's early work, there is a marked transformation that occurs around 2007. On Sirens ca. 2005-2006, we have "diaristic" songs about life as it is; it is rightly called juvenilia. It is interesting to chart her development with her lyrics. One of the earliest tracks to show her new development is, appropriately, "Pawn Shop Blues"—its first performance was in May, 2006:
 
In the name of higher consciousness
I let the best man I knew go
'Cause it's nice to love and be loved
But it's better to know all you can know
Said it's nice to love and be loved
But I'd rather know what God knows

Oh-no, oh-no, oh-no, oh-no, oh-no
I can't do this once more
No man can keep me together
Been broken since I was born
 
So her mindset in this period is clear. She has entered a sort of seclusion to "know" God, in the Gnostic sense. 
 
Then in early 2007:
 
It's the voodoo Mississippi south
Sixty-nine million stars
Birds are comin' out of my mouth
Spirits creepin' in my yard
Oh, my head, it's tiltin' back
Something's dancin' me around
Puttin' crystals on my neck
Liftin' my toes off the ground, ah-ah-ahh, ground, ah-ha-ah-ah
Rai-rai-rai-raise me up
 
A great change in her lyrics is already seen; the imagery is rich and figurative. The Melancholia of "Pawn Shop Blues" is followed by a sort of resurrection—"Jim raised me up". Then a theme emerges:

I am my only God now
 
Baby, I have become someone
A monster, hey, yeah, yeah
Baby, I've become someone
Not of this world, hey, yeah, yeah (cf. "Maha Maha")
 
I remember we came in May
And we changed our names to Lana and Ray
 
Lizzy has become Lana Ray, someone not of this world; the truest expression of who she is "on the inside." Somewhere in this time period, she writes "Yayo," which she has said depicts a pivotal moment in her life. Its first performance is June 14, 2007, appropriately before a performance of "Pawn Shop Blues". When she re-records the song for Paradise, it is the connecting link between "Gods and Monsters" and "Bel Air"—the necessary transition from hell to heaven.
 
You have to take me right now
From this dark trailer park life now...
Hello, Heaven, you are a tunnel lined
With yellow lights on a dark night
 
Palm trees in black and white
Was the last thing I saw before I died
Bright light, right man
Right mixture of cocaine and heroin

All that's real to me is Marilyn and Jesus
Jumpin' off'a bridges, sparklers and streamers, honey
I wanna die (fly), I wanna die (fly), I wanna die (fly)
 
A death and rebirth. A jump into the Abyss. Visions of a tropical Paradise. The alchemical mixture of elements ("energies combined"); figuratively cocaine (white) and heroin (black?). Marilyn and Jesus, archetypal forms from an eternal reality.

You my Axl Rose husband
Blue hydrangea
White Pontiac Heaven
Me, your red, white, and blue girl
Star-spangled danger
 
Now a richly-textured archetypal interior world emerges, entirely her own: the white car in heaven (seen in the "West Coast" video). Lana as the embodiment of America. The pun of "heavy metal" and alchemical metals. The men she most adores now become figures of her Animus that represent the alchemical King in the coniunctio. "At night I fell asleep with visions of myself dancing and laughing and crying with them..."

You, my heavy metal king, king
I said, "Daddy, I need you" (Yes)
Greenwich, I need you
Strangled up in ivy
I'm the garden of Eden
Lady Liberty
Teal with flame I'm shinin'
Queen, queen
You're my one king, daddy
I'm your little queen, red, white, and blue
 
(Cf. 2009: You can be my higher power, baby
I can be your empress USA)
 
I can be your 4th of July
Gimme that, gimme that, gimme that crystal meth, love
Because
Feels like sugar in me
 
Lana, or the temple that is her body and heart, becomes America and the Garden of Eden as the fertile earth (an image repeated in "Arcadia") in which Paradise is revealed, figuratively impregnated by a deity or Animus figure. Says Crowley, the Empress "is fitted to represent one of the three alchemical forms of energy, Salt. Salt is the inactive principle of Nature; Salt is matter which must be energized by Sulphur to maintain the whirling equilibrium of the Universe." Crystal meth as the alchemical Elixir: "This liquor is the Amrita of the Indian philosophers, the Nepenthe and Ambrosia of the Greeks, the Alkahest and Universal Medicine of the Alchemists, the Blood of the Grail; or, rather, the nectar which is the mother of that blood" (Crowley). Refer again to "Paradise is Very Fragile":
 
But you taste like the beach and a kiss.
Candy from my eyes,
in my veins you run citrus.
Watercolor images of serpents on orange trees arise in my midst.
Kundalini, you breathe me.

Fast forward to 2009:
 
I got that magical trance potion
Gotta leave, I can't wait 'til I'm older
 
2012:
 
Gargoyles standing at the front of your gate (= "Spirits creepin' in my yard")
Trying to tell me to wait, but I can’t wait to see you
So I run like I'm mad to Heaven’s door
I don’t wanna be bad, I won’t cheat you no more
Roses, Bel Air
Take me there
I’ve been waiting to meet you
Palm trees in the light
I can see late at night
Darling, I’m waiting to greet you
Come to me, baby
Spotlight, bad baby, you’ve got a flair
For the violentest kind of love anywhere out there
 
A summation of her Work so far; the great reveal at the end of Paradise that the fallen girl in "Gods and Monsters" has already been redeemed, and asks others to follow her. Ultraviolence is foreshadowed. Violent love that offers resurrection. 
 
2014:
 
They say I'm too young to love you
I don't know what I need
They think I don't understand
The freedom land of the 70s
 
At about the age of 21, almost unheard of in someone so young, something happened to Elizabeth Grant; something that she will not discuss openly even now, as it is impossible to describe in straightforward words—"an obsession for freedom that terrified me to the point that I couldn't even talk about it." This something changed the whole of her life to such an extent that she changed her name, changed her hair to suit the truth of her new interior reality ("the mood of your soul"), and transformed her songwriting into allegorical poetry. I hope this provides some insight into the true depth of her art, even in the earliest material.
 
You never liked the way I said it
If you don't get it, then forget it
'Cause I don't have to fucking explain it

Just read some of this thread and stuff about Lana using several men in one song and I found myself thinking about that when I was listening to Terrence Loves You. And now it as a song feels more interesting because like many of Lana’s songs we can’t be sure who that really is written about but uhm
 
Does anyone else think that TLY could be a song that's about all of her men? She loses the man and herself along the way and finds another one to distract herself? Like we know that she is really not the type to stay single for a long time and also she has had a lot of if not real boyfriends than at least ‘speculated relations’. And many of her relationships seem to me like they change her, even if just a bit because she puts so much of her heart into them.
 
“I lost myself when I lost you”
sounds to me like she found a man, she feels brand new with him because you know she herself is sensitive and adapts so well into her mens’ feelings and maybe even copies their characteristics? But then the man is gone, so now she is gone too?
 
“But you are who you are, I won't change you for anything. When you are crazy, I'll let you be bad. I'll never dare change thee to what you are not”
her men are who they are and she doesn’t put thoughts or efforts into changing them not only because she truly cares for them but also because she finds it easier and more pleasant to just change herself?
 
“I still got jazz when I’ve got those blues” ‘Jazz' could be an allegory to her true self? Like she still has some of herself left that she feels most connected with whenever she gets the ‘blues’ which could mean the break up? Or ‘jazz’ as in herself, her music and art that is always there and ‘blues’ as men that come and go?
 
I can see this song could also could also be about Barrie or ‘K’ or Josh or whoever her ‘same goddamn person’ is but this is something I’ve been thinking bout recently. Especially since she has dated Sean.
 
Or who knows maybe this song is just about alcohol idk

I find that the common interpretation of Lana's songs is that they are from a woman always longing for fulfillment in the arms of a man. Yet when she discusses this topic herself, her position is much more nuanced:
 
 
If you think that you know yourself, you can come over
 
Here she invokes the Hermetic image of the microcosm and Macrocosm. But who out there listens to a Lana Del Rey song and understands that her intent, in her own words, is to ask the great questions of the soul's origin and its return? A casual listener would probably say they're about drugs and daddy issues. And from the Variety award show, she expresses the same Hermetic belief:
 
 
Why there's a price on my head
It's nothin' to do with them (= the critics)
It's my karmic lineage...
 
Untraditional lover
Can you handle that?
 
I guess I'm complicated, my life's sorta too
I wish you could see to my soul through this black bathing suit
You don't know me any better than they do, baby
'Cause I sing like an angel, my heart's like one too
 
Her frustration in matters of love seems rather to be that her men do not "know themselves," and thus cannot know her soul (she once said she could only marry someone exactly like herself); the subject-object problem, that of Shiva and Shakti as one flesh in perfect Tantric union, remains unresolved.
 
The goal of Kundalini yoga is to burn away one's karmas ("through the fire, we're born again"); even in such an incongruous place as an award ceremony, she mentions that she is always in a process of going deeper—but only in the song does she explain that this lineage is karmic. It is interesting how she will self-censor, in one interview only mentioning "genetics" rather than some concept of ancestral karma ("let's ch-ch-change our DNA").
 
And to return to her own perspective on Get Free:
 
 
Repeatedly, she says that "the culture's" modern malaise is precisely that they seek fulfillment from others without looking within themselves. She contemplates the image of marriage and domesticity in Blue Banisters, but does not quite assent to it. It is a far cry from what people like Lorde saw in her music, but she leaves this for people to puzzle out for themselves, despite dropping hints at every opportunity.
 
Because I'm going deeper and deeper (deeper)
Harder and harder (harder)
Getting darker and darker
Looking for love
In all the wrong places
Oh my God

I find that the common interpretation of Lana's songs is that they are from a woman always longing for fulfillment in the arms of a man. Yet when she discusses this topic herself, her position is much more nuanced:
 
 
If you think that you know yourself, you can come over
 
Here she invokes the Hermetic image of the microcosm and Macrocosm. But who out there listens to a Lana Del Rey song and understands that her intent, in her own words, is to ask the great questions of the soul's origin and its return? A casual listener would probably say they're about drugs and daddy issues. And from the Variety award show, she expresses the same Hermetic belief:
 
 
Why there's a price on my head
It's nothin' to do with them (= the critics)
It's my karmic lineage...
 
Untraditional lover
Can you handle that?
 
I guess I'm complicated, my life's sorta too
I wish you could see to my soul through this black bathing suit
You don't know me any better than they do, baby
'Cause I sing like an angel, my heart's like one too
 
Her frustration in matters of love seems rather to be that her men do not "know themselves," and thus cannot know her soul (she once said she could only marry someone exactly like herself); the subject-object problem, that of Shiva and Shakti as one flesh in perfect Tantric union, remains unresolved.
 
The goal of Kundalini yoga is to burn away one's karmas ("through the fire, we're born again"); even in such an incongruous place as an award ceremony, she mentions that she is always in a process of going deeper—but only in the song does she explain that this lineage is karmic. It is interesting how she will self-censor, in one interview only mentioning "genetics" rather than some concept of ancestral karma ("let's ch-ch-change our DNA").
 
And to return to her own perspective on Get Free:
 
 
Repeatedly, she says that "the culture's" modern malaise is precisely that they seek fulfillment from others without looking within themselves. She contemplates the image of marriage and domesticity in Blue Banisters, but does not quite assent to it. It is a far cry from what people like Lorde saw in her music, but she leaves this for people to puzzle out for themselves, despite dropping hints at every opportunity.
 
Because I'm going deeper and deeper (deeper)
Harder and harder (harder)
Getting darker and darker
Looking for love
In all the wrong places
Oh my God

I find that the common interpretation of Lana's songs is that they are from a woman always longing for fulfillment in the arms of a man. Yet when she discusses this topic herself, her position is much more nuanced:
 
 
If you think that you know yourself, you can come over
 
Here she invokes the Hermetic image of the microcosm and Macrocosm. But who out there listens to a Lana Del Rey song and understands that her intent, in her own words, is to ask the great questions of the soul's origin and its return? A casual listener would probably say they're about drugs and daddy issues. And from the Variety award show, she expresses the same Hermetic belief:
 
 
Why there's a price on my head
It's nothin' to do with them (= the critics)
It's my karmic lineage...
 
Untraditional lover
Can you handle that?
 
I guess I'm complicated, my life's sorta too
I wish you could see to my soul through this black bathing suit
You don't know me any better than they do, baby
'Cause I sing like an angel, my heart's like one too
 
Her frustration in matters of love seems rather to be that her men do not "know themselves," and thus cannot know her soul (she once said she could only marry someone exactly like herself); the subject-object problem, that of Shiva and Shakti as one flesh in perfect Tantric union, remains unresolved.
 
The goal of Kundalini yoga is to burn away one's karmas ("through the fire, we're born again"); even in such an incongruous place as an award ceremony, she mentions that she is always in a process of going deeper—but only in the song does she explain that this lineage is karmic. It is interesting how she will self-censor, in one interview only mentioning "genetics" rather than some concept of ancestral karma ("let's ch-ch-change our DNA").
 
And to return to her own perspective on Get Free:
 
 
Repeatedly, she says that "the culture's" modern malaise is precisely that they seek fulfillment from others without looking within themselves. She contemplates the image of marriage and domesticity in Blue Banisters, but does not quite assent to it. It is a far cry from what people like Lorde saw in her music, but she leaves this for people to puzzle out for themselves, despite dropping hints at every opportunity.
 
Because I'm going deeper and deeper (deeper)
Harder and harder (harder)
Getting darker and darker
Looking for love
In all the wrong places
Oh my God

I still like BB, but Beautiful and Violets are pure tedium and drag the middle of the album down. Imagine IYLDWM segueing straight into Dealer and you have a killer album.

I still like BB, but Beautiful and Violets are pure tedium and drag the middle of the album down. Imagine IYLDWM segueing straight into Dealer and you have a killer album.

I really have no idea what I was saying on the previous pages; I'll try to simplify a bit.
 
 
I think she is rather speaking of obeying the intuitive promptings of the Self, or, as she said elsewhere, "channeling angels in the New Age..." 
 
'Cause my body is my temple, my heart is one, too...
I wish you could see to my soul through this black bathing suit
You don't know me any better than they do, baby
'Cause I sing like an angel, my heart's like one, too
 
Some other choice quotes from that interview--
 
 
She references this in quite a few places and has mentioned multiple times her fascination with Carl Jung. Her music, by her own words, is depicting the interior landscape of the Self. Her songs and poems seem to flit in and out of exotericism and esotericism; witness "Paradise is Very Fragile":
 
Who am I to dream for you?
It’s just that in my own mind,
I was born with a little bit of paradise.
I was lucky in that way.
Not like my husband,
Who was born and raised in hell.
 
I always had something gentle to give.
All of me, in fact.
It’s one of the beautiful things about me.
It’s one of the beautiful things about nature....
 
Paradise is very fragile,
and it’s only getting worse.
 
And every time I think of that,
I think about the curse bestowed upon Eve
That fateful eve she took that bite of fruit from that fruitful tree.
And this summer night, you in front of me,
Makes me contemplate the origins of good and evil.
 
Because you take, and you take, and take, and you take,
But you taste like the beach and a kiss.
Candy from my eyes,
in my veins you run citrus.
 
Watercolour images of serpents on orange trees arise in my midst.
Kundalini, you breathe me.
I could do this forever.
 
But my heart is very fragile,
and I have nothing left to give.
 
What is she talking about here? She starts with a concrete picture of the Woolsey Fire; but the end is quite different. Who is her "husband"? Well, wasn't Jesus her boyfriend? Is this her Animus, in the Jungian sense? Why do serpents on orange trees arise in her "midst"? Isn't that the "heart girt with a serpent," representing the risen Kundalini? Or is it the Guns and Roses of her Axl Rose Husband? The following lines make the connection explicit. Compare to the poem by Aleister Crowley:
 
I am the Heart; and the Snake is entwined
About the invisible core of the mind.
Rise, O my snake! It is now is the hour
Of the hooded and holy ineffable flower.
Rise, O my snake, into brilliance of bloom
On the corpse of Osiris afloat in the tomb!
O heart of my mother, my sister, mine own,
Thou art given to Nile, to the terror Typhon!
Ah me! but the glory of ravening storm
Enswathes thee and wraps thee in frenzy of form.
Be still, O my soul! that the spell may dissolve
As the wands are upraised, and the æons revolve.
Behold! in my beauty how joyous Thou art,
O Snake that caresses the crown of mine heart!
 
Some sources on Yoga will claim that the Kundalini must rise to the top of the head, but this is a bit of a misconception; it is rather the vehicle of awakening the Self in the heart.
 
"The fire of Kundalini is at the base of all existence. It is the raw foundational energy that the spiritual seeker wants to cultivate, develop, or awaken, depending on which tradition or terms they use."
 
I'm on fire, baby, I'm on fire
He's got the fire and he walks with it
He's got the fire and he talks with it
His Bonnie on the side, Bonnie on the side
Makes me a sad, sad girl
 
Who is "he"? Her unseen husband? But why does it make her a sad girl? Because awakening the Kundalini is accompanied by a profound Melancholy; the Dark Night of the Soul.
 
"This is the beginning of the Nigredo process, whereby the initiate is pulverised, disintegrated, burnt to blackness. Nigredo is ‘Melancholia’; the saturnine mood is sober, sardonic, grave or sullen. This is the lead of the Alchemists. The beginning of the spiritual process."
 
Well, wasn't "Melancholia the original" "Ultraviolence" title from the Queen of Alchemy wedded to the heavy-hitting King, who once proclaimed SOLVE ET COAGULA? A song like "The Blackest Day" is about journeying into the depths of the Unconscious.
 
"For the Alchemist, the first stage of the 'Great Work' is the Nigredo, the stage of Blackness, disintegration, chaos, where the material (metal, the soul of Man, or what have you) is reduced to the 'prima materia' or formless original stuff, before it can proceed to the second stage, the Albedo (whiteness), where the material may be unified once again. The Alchemical process is circular, alternating between Solve and Coagula on its path towards perfection." (John R. Stahl)
 
The next step of the alchemical process is Albedo--the title of an interlude in 2016. And indeed, Ultraviolence finds her cooking up snow on her alchemical stove; comprehend her sure white lines. (Why is "Yayo" such a significant song for her? Why did she sell heart-shaped coke spoon necklaces?) Now compare the subject of the title track to this stage of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey:
 
"Ultraviolence" is a study in Initiation by the archetypal Father where the initiate is "pulverised, disintegrated, burnt." "Jim takes me down, he's a fire eater..." 
 
I could have died right there
'Cause he was right beside me
Jim raised me up [Mississippi South]
He hurt me but it felt like true love
Jim taught me that
Loving him was never enough
With his ultraviolence
 
Now turn to her explanation of "Get Free":
 
 
And her explanation on World Café, this is the key to getting free:
 
"I think going deeper, you know? Knowing that you're your own doorway to the answers and not looking for answers in other people."
And now I do, I wanna move
Out of the black (out of the black)
Into the blue (into the blue)
Finally, gone is the burden of the Crowley way of being
That comes from energies combined (2017)
"The Great Work is the uniting of opposites. It may mean the uniting of the soul with God, of the microcosm with the macrocosm, of the female with the male, of the ego with the non-ego." (Crowley)
Crowley's works were based on the western tradition of Hermetic alchemy...among other things.
I'm crossing the threshold
From the ordinary world
To the reveal of my heart
Undoubtedly
That will for certain
Take the dead out of the sea
And the darkness from the arts
"For as thy blood is mingled in the cup of BABALON, so is thine heart the universal heart." (Crowley)
The "threshold" is in Crowley's system a crossing of the Abyss; the "energies combined" are the alchemical King and Queen, or Fire and Water, Animus and Anima. The arts are, of course, the Hermetic arts; in one live performance, she replaces "arts" with heart, where the transformation takes place in the core of being.
After 2017, it seems like she made a deliberate decision, as stated in "Get Free," to focus more on the realities of her day-to-day life and less on mysticism (out of the black, into the blue). Her songs since then seem to lack the overt symbolism of her previous work, trying to find paradise in the mundane. "Life is beautiful, but you don't have a clue."

I really have no idea what I was saying on the previous pages; I'll try to simplify a bit.
 
 
I think she is rather speaking of obeying the intuitive promptings of the Self, or, as she said elsewhere, "channeling angels in the New Age..." 
 
'Cause my body is my temple, my heart is one, too...
I wish you could see to my soul through this black bathing suit
You don't know me any better than they do, baby
'Cause I sing like an angel, my heart's like one, too
 
Some other choice quotes from that interview--
 
 
She references this in quite a few places and has mentioned multiple times her fascination with Carl Jung. Her music, by her own words, is depicting the interior landscape of the Self. Her songs and poems seem to flit in and out of exotericism and esotericism; witness "Paradise is Very Fragile":
 
Who am I to dream for you?
It’s just that in my own mind,
I was born with a little bit of paradise.
I was lucky in that way.
Not like my husband,
Who was born and raised in hell.
 
I always had something gentle to give.
All of me, in fact.
It’s one of the beautiful things about me.
It’s one of the beautiful things about nature....
 
Paradise is very fragile,
and it’s only getting worse.
 
And every time I think of that,
I think about the curse bestowed upon Eve
That fateful eve she took that bite of fruit from that fruitful tree.
And this summer night, you in front of me,
Makes me contemplate the origins of good and evil.
 
Because you take, and you take, and take, and you take,
But you taste like the beach and a kiss.
Candy from my eyes,
in my veins you run citrus.
 
Watercolour images of serpents on orange trees arise in my midst.
Kundalini, you breathe me.
I could do this forever.
 
But my heart is very fragile,
and I have nothing left to give.
 
What is she talking about here? She starts with a concrete picture of the Woolsey Fire; but the end is quite different. Who is her "husband"? Well, wasn't Jesus her boyfriend? Is this her Animus, in the Jungian sense? Why do serpents on orange trees arise in her "midst"? Isn't that the "heart girt with a serpent," representing the risen Kundalini? Or is it the Guns and Roses of her Axl Rose Husband? The following lines make the connection explicit. Compare to the poem by Aleister Crowley:
 
I am the Heart; and the Snake is entwined
About the invisible core of the mind.
Rise, O my snake! It is now is the hour
Of the hooded and holy ineffable flower.
Rise, O my snake, into brilliance of bloom
On the corpse of Osiris afloat in the tomb!
O heart of my mother, my sister, mine own,
Thou art given to Nile, to the terror Typhon!
Ah me! but the glory of ravening storm
Enswathes thee and wraps thee in frenzy of form.
Be still, O my soul! that the spell may dissolve
As the wands are upraised, and the æons revolve.
Behold! in my beauty how joyous Thou art,
O Snake that caresses the crown of mine heart!
 
Some sources on Yoga will claim that the Kundalini must rise to the top of the head, but this is a bit of a misconception; it is rather the vehicle of awakening the Self in the heart.
 
"The fire of Kundalini is at the base of all existence. It is the raw foundational energy that the spiritual seeker wants to cultivate, develop, or awaken, depending on which tradition or terms they use."
 
I'm on fire, baby, I'm on fire
He's got the fire and he walks with it
He's got the fire and he talks with it
His Bonnie on the side, Bonnie on the side
Makes me a sad, sad girl
 
Who is "he"? Her unseen husband? But why does it make her a sad girl? Because awakening the Kundalini is accompanied by a profound Melancholy; the Dark Night of the Soul.
 
"This is the beginning of the Nigredo process, whereby the initiate is pulverised, disintegrated, burnt to blackness. Nigredo is ‘Melancholia’; the saturnine mood is sober, sardonic, grave or sullen. This is the lead of the Alchemists. The beginning of the spiritual process."
 
Well, wasn't "Melancholia the original" "Ultraviolence" title from the Queen of Alchemy wedded to the heavy-hitting King, who once proclaimed SOLVE ET COAGULA? A song like "The Blackest Day" is about journeying into the depths of the Unconscious.
 
"For the Alchemist, the first stage of the 'Great Work' is the Nigredo, the stage of Blackness, disintegration, chaos, where the material (metal, the soul of Man, or what have you) is reduced to the 'prima materia' or formless original stuff, before it can proceed to the second stage, the Albedo (whiteness), where the material may be unified once again. The Alchemical process is circular, alternating between Solve and Coagula on its path towards perfection." (John R. Stahl)
 
The next step of the alchemical process is Albedo--the title of an interlude in 2016. And indeed, Ultraviolence finds her cooking up snow on her alchemical stove; comprehend her sure white lines. (Why is "Yayo" such a significant song for her? Why did she sell heart-shaped coke spoon necklaces?) Now compare the subject of the title track to this stage of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey:
 
"Ultraviolence" is a study in Initiation by the archetypal Father where the initiate is "pulverised, disintegrated, burnt." "Jim takes me down, he's a fire eater..." 
 
I could have died right there
'Cause he was right beside me
Jim raised me up [Mississippi South]
He hurt me but it felt like true love
Jim taught me that
Loving him was never enough
With his ultraviolence
 
Now turn to her explanation of "Get Free":
 
 
And her explanation on World Café, this is the key to getting free:
 
"I think going deeper, you know? Knowing that you're your own doorway to the answers and not looking for answers in other people."
And now I do, I wanna move
Out of the black (out of the black)
Into the blue (into the blue)
Finally, gone is the burden of the Crowley way of being
That comes from energies combined (2017)
"The Great Work is the uniting of opposites. It may mean the uniting of the soul with God, of the microcosm with the macrocosm, of the female with the male, of the ego with the non-ego." (Crowley)
Crowley's works were based on the western tradition of Hermetic alchemy...among other things.
I'm crossing the threshold
From the ordinary world
To the reveal of my heart
Undoubtedly
That will for certain
Take the dead out of the sea
And the darkness from the arts
"For as thy blood is mingled in the cup of BABALON, so is thine heart the universal heart." (Crowley)
The "threshold" is in Crowley's system a crossing of the Abyss; the "energies combined" are the alchemical King and Queen, or Fire and Water, Animus and Anima. The arts are, of course, the Hermetic arts; in one live performance, she replaces "arts" with heart, where the transformation takes place in the core of being.
After 2017, it seems like she made a deliberate decision, as stated in "Get Free," to focus more on the realities of her day-to-day life and less on mysticism (out of the black, into the blue). Her songs since then seem to lack the overt symbolism of her previous work, trying to find paradise in the mundane. "Life is beautiful, but you don't have a clue."

Apparently she’s been reading Jung since at least 2014! I hadn’t realized it until I heard her commentary on Money Power Glory, and that’s one lens she used for the song!

It seems that there are two digital masters for this album: the original master from which the Text Book, Blue Banisters, and Wildfire singles were pulled, and a second master released on CD. You can find the original master on Qobuz and it sounds great, but it clips like mad. I suspect the second master was an emergency fix job to tame some of the egregious clipping, but in so doing it lacks the punch of the original master. You can see the Qobuz waveforms compared with the Amazon release and they're noticeably different.
 
Something for the collectors...

"Freedom comes from the call..."
 
https://knpr.org/npr/2018-02/lana-del-rey-world-cafe
 
I want to end with the song that ends the record, "Get Free." You sing, "This is my commitment / My modern manifesto / I'm doing it for all of us / Who never got the chance." Never got the chance to what?
For Amy [Winehouse], and for Whitney [Houston]. "And all my birds of paradise / Who never got to fly at night, / 'Cause they were caught up in the dance." It's about people who don't get to reach their full potential because they let controlling people stop them from being free.
 
It has a line that's so evocative: "I wanna move out of the black, into the blue." I'm wondering what the black is and what the blue is.
Well, in my head, the black was negative thinking, and the blue was a bit of a retreat into nature. So visually, I was thinking the ocean, but also just the connotation of the words: I think of the sky, like a new horizon, something fresher.
 
What's the key to getting free?
I think going deeper, you know? Knowing that you're your own doorway to the answers and not looking for answers in other people.
 
 
"When I was writing that song, I had a little conversation with my engineer, who's one of my dear friends; his name's Kieron Menzies. And we were talking about this model they use in literature; sometimes it's called the Hero's Journey. And it starts with crossing the threshold of the ordinary world and moving to the main character's reveal of the heart. And then the character goes through all these different cycles; they battle the giant, they battle themselves, and then they come back and they find out who they really are. And so I liked that idea. I thought it sort of resembled my story. (Inaudible), I revealed my heart. And then the rest is a Mystery. All I'll say."
 
What did she say in the inaudible part?

I really have no idea what I was saying on the previous pages; I'll try to simplify a bit.
 
 
I think she is rather speaking of obeying the intuitive promptings of the Self, or, as she said elsewhere, "channeling angels in the New Age..." 
 
'Cause my body is my temple, my heart is one, too...
I wish you could see to my soul through this black bathing suit
You don't know me any better than they do, baby
'Cause I sing like an angel, my heart's like one, too
 
Some other choice quotes from that interview--
 
 
She references this in quite a few places and has mentioned multiple times her fascination with Carl Jung. Her music, by her own words, is depicting the interior landscape of the Self. Her songs and poems seem to flit in and out of exotericism and esotericism; witness "Paradise is Very Fragile":
 
Who am I to dream for you?
It’s just that in my own mind,
I was born with a little bit of paradise.
I was lucky in that way.
Not like my husband,
Who was born and raised in hell.
 
I always had something gentle to give.
All of me, in fact.
It’s one of the beautiful things about me.
It’s one of the beautiful things about nature....
 
Paradise is very fragile,
and it’s only getting worse.
 
And every time I think of that,
I think about the curse bestowed upon Eve
That fateful eve she took that bite of fruit from that fruitful tree.
And this summer night, you in front of me,
Makes me contemplate the origins of good and evil.
 
Because you take, and you take, and take, and you take,
But you taste like the beach and a kiss.
Candy from my eyes,
in my veins you run citrus.
 
Watercolour images of serpents on orange trees arise in my midst.
Kundalini, you breathe me.
I could do this forever.
 
But my heart is very fragile,
and I have nothing left to give.
 
What is she talking about here? She starts with a concrete picture of the Woolsey Fire; but the end is quite different. Who is her "husband"? Well, wasn't Jesus her boyfriend? Is this her Animus, in the Jungian sense? Why do serpents on orange trees arise in her "midst"? Isn't that the "heart girt with a serpent," representing the risen Kundalini? Or is it the Guns and Roses of her Axl Rose Husband? The following lines make the connection explicit. Compare to the poem by Aleister Crowley:
 
I am the Heart; and the Snake is entwined
About the invisible core of the mind.
Rise, O my snake! It is now is the hour
Of the hooded and holy ineffable flower.
Rise, O my snake, into brilliance of bloom
On the corpse of Osiris afloat in the tomb!
O heart of my mother, my sister, mine own,
Thou art given to Nile, to the terror Typhon!
Ah me! but the glory of ravening storm
Enswathes thee and wraps thee in frenzy of form.
Be still, O my soul! that the spell may dissolve
As the wands are upraised, and the æons revolve.
Behold! in my beauty how joyous Thou art,
O Snake that caresses the crown of mine heart!
 
Some sources on Yoga will claim that the Kundalini must rise to the top of the head, but this is a bit of a misconception; it is rather the vehicle of awakening the Self in the heart.
 
"The fire of Kundalini is at the base of all existence. It is the raw foundational energy that the spiritual seeker wants to cultivate, develop, or awaken, depending on which tradition or terms they use."
 
I'm on fire, baby, I'm on fire
He's got the fire and he walks with it
He's got the fire and he talks with it
His Bonnie on the side, Bonnie on the side
Makes me a sad, sad girl
 
Who is "he"? Her unseen husband? But why does it make her a sad girl? Because awakening the Kundalini is accompanied by a profound Melancholy; the Dark Night of the Soul.
 
"This is the beginning of the Nigredo process, whereby the initiate is pulverised, disintegrated, burnt to blackness. Nigredo is ‘Melancholia’; the saturnine mood is sober, sardonic, grave or sullen. This is the lead of the Alchemists. The beginning of the spiritual process."
 
Well, wasn't "Melancholia the original" "Ultraviolence" title from the Queen of Alchemy wedded to the heavy-hitting King, who once proclaimed SOLVE ET COAGULA? A song like "The Blackest Day" is about journeying into the depths of the Unconscious.
 
"For the Alchemist, the first stage of the 'Great Work' is the Nigredo, the stage of Blackness, disintegration, chaos, where the material (metal, the soul of Man, or what have you) is reduced to the 'prima materia' or formless original stuff, before it can proceed to the second stage, the Albedo (whiteness), where the material may be unified once again. The Alchemical process is circular, alternating between Solve and Coagula on its path towards perfection." (John R. Stahl)
 
The next step of the alchemical process is Albedo--the title of an interlude in 2016. And indeed, Ultraviolence finds her cooking up snow on her alchemical stove; comprehend her sure white lines. (Why is "Yayo" such a significant song for her? Why did she sell heart-shaped coke spoon necklaces?) Now compare the subject of the title track to this stage of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey:
 
"Ultraviolence" is a study in Initiation by the archetypal Father where the initiate is "pulverised, disintegrated, burnt." "Jim takes me down, he's a fire eater..." 
 
I could have died right there
'Cause he was right beside me
Jim raised me up [Mississippi South]
He hurt me but it felt like true love
Jim taught me that
Loving him was never enough
With his ultraviolence
 
Now turn to her explanation of "Get Free":
 
 
And her explanation on World Café, this is the key to getting free:
 
"I think going deeper, you know? Knowing that you're your own doorway to the answers and not looking for answers in other people."
And now I do, I wanna move
Out of the black (out of the black)
Into the blue (into the blue)
Finally, gone is the burden of the Crowley way of being
That comes from energies combined (2017)
"The Great Work is the uniting of opposites. It may mean the uniting of the soul with God, of the microcosm with the macrocosm, of the female with the male, of the ego with the non-ego." (Crowley)
Crowley's works were based on the western tradition of Hermetic alchemy...among other things.
I'm crossing the threshold
From the ordinary world
To the reveal of my heart
Undoubtedly
That will for certain
Take the dead out of the sea
And the darkness from the arts
"For as thy blood is mingled in the cup of BABALON, so is thine heart the universal heart." (Crowley)
The "threshold" is in Crowley's system a crossing of the Abyss; the "energies combined" are the alchemical King and Queen, or Fire and Water, Animus and Anima. The arts are, of course, the Hermetic arts; in one live performance, she replaces "arts" with heart, where the transformation takes place in the core of being.
After 2017, it seems like she made a deliberate decision, as stated in "Get Free," to focus more on the realities of her day-to-day life and less on mysticism (out of the black, into the blue). Her songs since then seem to lack the overt symbolism of her previous work, trying to find paradise in the mundane. "Life is beautiful, but you don't have a clue."

Could the “You’re born in December and I’m born in June.” line be about Jesus? 
 
Also the “You’re in the wind, I’m in the water.” We’re made from water, God is in the air.

It took me 48 hours, but I finally read everything.
 
I think this is the right thread to bring this up:
 
I was always fascinated about the interview that she says that she let the lyrics come to her
 
"XL. It requires a lot of self-control, doesn't it?
 
L.R. It's patience. Like letting the lyrics come to me. Sometimes is painful, but it's the only way. I feel that my path was revealed to me, but I needed to be an empty vessel for it to happen. Like an electrical conduit. Electricity does not go through you if you're blocked."
 
Maybe she's describing some sort of psychography (spirit writing/automatic writing)?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_writing
 
She have her sun, mercury and mars in the 8th house. Her moon is on the 9th and pluto in the 12th. Her rising sign is scorpio. Those placements suggests mediumship, attraction to themes related to death, the occult and rebirth.
 
It also bugged me why someone like her would attend a church like Churchome. She seems so connect with God and the occult that believing in prosperity gospel would be a joke. But tonight it hit me. According to the reviews, Churchome encourages their participants to speak in tongues. Baptism by the fire is also commonly used in churches that follows the prosperity gospel. Maybe she's seeking a deeper spiritual connection? Not going only because of the church, but the things that she can experience at the church?
 

The first time I heard Yes To Heaven, I interpreted it as Lana merely speaking to her loved one and exhorting him to, I suppose, reciprocate her love. Upon further listenings I instead interpreted the song as Lana being the voice of God, exhorting the listener to say yes to Heaven; exhorting us to say yes to God (the divine feminine, Shekinah, etc.). Yes, I realize this is just symbolic, not literal.

I've read every single post on this thread and damn, am I impressed with all of your perspectives and analyses. Thanks to you guys, especially @@DeadAgainst and @litewave, I've come to appreciate Lana's artistry even more. Thank you so much!
 
Which album do you guys think is the "richest" in terms of meanings?
 
And what do you think she'll bring to the table for future albums? Like, what else do you expect her to write about? 

I still like BB, but Beautiful and Violets are pure tedium and drag the middle of the album down. Imagine IYLDWM segueing straight into Dealer and you have a killer album.

ANYWAYS! If you want to download the audio without the crowd, here it is https://dbree.org/v/84f9a4 

I still like BB, but Beautiful and Violets are pure tedium and drag the middle of the album down. Imagine IYLDWM segueing straight into Dealer and you have a killer album.

I still like BB, but Beautiful and Violets are pure tedium and drag the middle of the album down. Imagine IYLDWM segueing straight into Dealer and you have a killer album.

It seems that there are two digital masters for this album: the original master from which the Text Book, Blue Banisters, and Wildfire singles were pulled, and a second master released on CD. You can find the original master on Qobuz and it sounds great, but it clips like mad. I suspect the second master was an emergency fix job to tame some of the egregious clipping, but in so doing it lacks the punch of the original master. You can see the Qobuz waveforms compared with the Amazon release and they're noticeably different.
 
Something for the collectors...

Keep in mind "Yayo" dates back to 2007 at least