Swan Song

Dreamland, Ride, SoundCloud photo? Helllloooooo?

I think the song is about her fame and the impact it has had on those close to her. The start of the song seems to be about her boyfriend breaking up with her and then she realizes that she should start focusing on self-love and building up a good relationship with HERSELF, since it's "the only love" that she "hasn't screwed up". She talks about how others might see her being alone in a room dancing by herself and crying as a sad scene but to her, it's about self-love and just being at peace with herself.
 
To me, the chorus is completely about her fame and how people get to a point where they don't want to know her anymore because being in the public eye and having to continue a relationship with a famous person is now "too much", hence the fact she refers to herself as a "liability" - because she knows that others feel like their privacy is being compromised by having a connection to her.
 
The second verse is elaborating on this idea, highlighting how people use her for fame but then once they've got what they want out of her (i.e. getting famous themselves perhaps), they abandon her and move on, just like a kid will play with a toy until it is destroyed or doesn't work anymore and there is no immediate use for it anymore. 
 
I find the ending to be really beautiful and hopeful though. Even though she knows people in the past (possibly her boyfriend as referenced in the first verse) have used her fame for their own advantage and abandoned her when it got too much, she also knows that there is a bright future ahead for her and everyone is going to have no choice but to "watch her". I suppose you could also interpret the ending as sad if you see the sun metaphor as her "disappearing" from the lives of those people who were using her for fame, but I personally prefer the more hopeful one. 

Nope. She was literally indie and unknown back then. I remember before I became a Lana stan I saw the Born To Die video on MTV while I was in a rush. And I was getting entranced, but I was like "NO I don't have time to discover new music"!!! So I turned the tv off  and didn't truly discover Lana until a few months later when I was watching Marilyn Monore singing to JFK on YouTube and all the comments were like "LANA NATIONAL ANTHEM <3"
 
I was who the fvck is Lana Del Rey. Then I looked up the National Anthem video and my life completely changed    

I thought best american record was a bad title but then I heard hopeless fountain kingdom

There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting Lana to be more active in terms of providing more than just bare minimal effort for her fans, and it certainly doesn't mean she has to "sell out." No one is saying she owes us anything. It is, however, disappointing to be fans of someone who literally does almost nothing beyond just dropping the album and releasing a few subpar music videos. Yes, the music is great and lovely and at the end of the day we will all listen to it, but it quickly runs dry.
 
Lana doesn't care for being mainstream, and I don't blame her after what she went to, nor would it suit her either. However!! Not being mainstream doesn't mean she should literally just scrape by with doing almost nothing. Lana should take advantage of being on such a large label and use their resources to craft eras that she feels comfortable with.
 
For example, she hates singing live television -- why not record a few intimate performances of your favourite songs off the album and post them on Youtube periodically throughout the year? Just her and the band.
 
She doesn't like extensive & exhausting promotion -- you don't want to appear on TV mopping the floor with Jimmy Fallon, fine, we get it. Why not just host a few livestreams that last more than 30 seconds so your fans can see/interact with you??
 
Interviews depress you & make you want to kill yourself because the questions are always dumb and passive aggressive -- why not do a Q/A with your fans where you get to pick the exact questions you want to answer?
 
Lana seems to really like the process of actually making the album and then quickly loses interest in it almost immediately to move on to the next one. Why not document the entire album recording process, showing us how she crafts each song, talking about the history/meaning behind each one...
 
Idk. There's lots of things she can do to make the fan experience a whole lot better + remain completely comfortable in LA going to work or the coffee shops. The fact also remains that she won't maintain her popularity/sales at this level of effort and will quickly lose the ability to even make the kind of music she really wants to.
 
wow this ended up so long this is what happens when u go on lanaboards to distract u from midterms 

It's crazy to me how well the Love music video is doing. Still getting over 1M views per day after 2 weeks. No other LDR video ever had this much buzz when released.
I honestly think the song still has potential to be a sleeper hit. Gagie's Million Reasons even dropped out of the charts at one point but with some good promo it became a top5 hit, it may seem like Lana and her team have already forgotten about the song but I believe they're just following the original schedule and promo may come at the end of the month and the song still has potential to be successful.
 
For anyone wondering successful doesn't necessarily mean for it to be a mainstream and for Lana to be a sold out. It means the song is well received and gets praised by the general public.
Yall so concerned about Lana being happy, but wouldn't she be happier to see her music is being appreciated after being so heavily criticized in the past ?

I understand her not doing SNL and sometimes pulling out of US promo but yes she should really promote in Europe, it would be so easy for her Is it the travel? Tending her hydrangeas? Who knows maybe she has some planned

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRNcGNpDK19/?taken-by=nongmopaleovapedaddy420&hl=en
 
So Father John Misty and Lana's boyfriend? "Jonathon Wilson" will be on SNL tonight!!!!
 
When will Lana 

Holy shit this thread was a task and a half to read through, Lana can release 0 information and you guys still have so much bullshit to talk about. Respectable

Like

I'm so here for a witch/psychic aethetic. Black hair, tapestries, gold in your face jewelry, crystal balls. Sorta like this but darker

ever since I saw The Love Witch I cant stop picturing Lana as Elaine
I would fucking asphyxiate if LDR5 would serve the love witch-esque visuals 
 

No promo is going to make this era. I keep saying it but doing a song for the Twin Peaks reboot would be EASY. Hasn't Lynch already said he likes her? She could sell a cute makeup line for SURE (Mac? Too Faced? Lancome is trying to lose the grandma image lately) She could cut the ribbon at a new Zara for all I care at this point, just get out there sis 

well um im leaving for a week-long vacation for the florida beaches on march 18 so lana better drop that album soon gal... going 2 florida and solemnly walking with my toes in the sand and listening to lana del rey is like, my emo gay dream

The fact that 99% of the fans not wanting to see Lana succeed became fans and got introduced to Lana during uv or hm though. They weren't here when the slayage during btd and paradise happened. They "don't know what they're missing out on". Also sometimes I feel as if some people can't comprehend that Lana won't become a Selena Gomez 2.0 just because she gets some exposure, girl did two H&M campaigns and a jaguar deal and didn't deliver any Teenage Dream bop for them. Sometimes you also have to understand that she needs exposure in order to serve you 'trailblazer icon' and headlining coachella or Glastonbury status.

I actually agree with all of this. There is no effort. All we get are shaky videos from several festivals, hardly any inteviews and barely any interaction with her fans. All other fanbases get so much more. 
 
But in the end, I am not surprised. This fanbase as a whole is messed up. I don't blame Lana's team for not pushing her to come out of her shell or Lana herself being remotly interested. Whenever they browse this forum they will find plenty of posts where her OWN FANS don't want to see her on TV or hear her music on the radio. When there is no demand even from your supporters, why even trying? Who will be here for it when her fans aren't either?
 
Either this fanbase is packed with lowlifes with suicidal tendencies who hardly care about themselves or the rest of us just simply needs to be more vocal about wanting to see and hear more from Lana.

The day this trash said this:
"“[Lana Del Rey] is great, but I listened to [her] record and the whole time I was just thinking it’s so unhealthy for young girls to be listening to, you know: “I’m nothing without you.” This sort of shirt-tugging, desperate, don’t leave me stuff. That’s not a good thing for young girls, even young people, to hear.”"
 
Was the day that she was dead to me. She took one song out of her entire discography and misconstrued her concept and meaning behind each album. And has it occurred to lorde this was lanas way of being against codependency? Not everyone preaches the same way.  

Mock new record 
 

 

Yes to Heaven

 

Did this mess for B4R <3
 

She only mentions Bill once in a bridge which is kind of hazy and fast, her driving a car, sorting out memories ; therefore if she name drops Bill in that context, it doesn't mean that the song is about him, I think that it's just some kind of flash from the past, possibly because of the similarities between her lover and Bill or the emotion the image adds to the song.

Not sure whether we should be doing this here or in Lanalysis instead, but whatever...

Sorry guys, I'm with @@longtimeman on this. I think this is primarily a song about Barrie (and kind of a harsh one, maybe even unfair). Let's break it down:

"My baby used to dance underneath my architecture"
Barrie was not only living in the shadow of her metaphoric architecture, her career and fame as @Lona Delery noted, but he was living with her under her roof, probably on her dime, in her fancy houses. Literally under her architecture. (@bummersummer made a similar point above.) And he's the only significant musician other she had during her post-fame period where she was rich enough to live in fancy houses.

"Houses of the Holy"
See @@longtimeman's post about that.

"He was cool as heck"
Potentially a callback to "Yeah, my boyfriend's pretty cool/But he's not as cool as me" in "Brooklyn Baby", a Barrie song, and perhaps "Shades of Cool". The repetition of the line almost seems to emphasize this.

"But you were so obsessed with writing the next best American record
But there was nothing left by the time we got to bed"
This is consistent with the picture she painted of Barrie in interviews and "Is This Happiness" (@SissyReed alluded to this) as someone focused on their art, more than she, perhaps to the detriment of everything else. (Ha, I'm amused just thinking about how blasphemous the idea of neglecting Lana in the boudoir probably seems to most of her fanbase.)

"How does that taste cumming out"
As @Sjp1988 suggested, perhaps a sly reference to Barrie being the origin of her saying "My pussy tastes like Pepsi-cola"?

"You did it all for fame
Baby, how's life treating you now
It's over"
Alleging that he did it all for fame seems harsh, perhaps a little unfair (and projecting to some degree), but Barrie did quit Kassidy to move to LA and pursue a solo career and live with his famous significant other. No part of that worked out.

"He was '70s in spirit, '90s in his frame of mind"
Definitely describes Barrie well, as he's heavily influenced by classic rock and Nirvana.

"Baby, how you feeling now
That I told you
We're through"
Lana was the one that broke things off. (Although it's questionable if she actually did tell him or just ghosted.)

"All the roads lead to you
Like the 405 I drive through
Everynight and everyday"
Not dispositive, but suggestive of her time living in California post-fame which points towards Barrie. Also, if taken semi-literally Barrie continued to live in LA for a time after they broke up.

"I see you for who you really are
Why the thousands of girls
Love the way Bill plays guitar"
Barrie is an accomplished guitarist. And "thousands of girls" instead of millions is fitting for Barrie/Kassidy.
 
OK, now to deal with some of the Barrie counter-arguments:
 
As @Vonn pointed out, she never says the person actually achieved fame.
 
I really don't think I could buy a producer theory for this song unless the line was "You were so obsessed with making the next best American record", but the line is "writing".

I think Mertens is too much of an artistic polymath to fit this. I don't see him having a single-minded focus on music, let alone "writing the next best American record".
 
Absent a specific candidate-- like Jimmy Gnecco, Lady Gaga, Chuck-- I'm inclined to believe that names she likes to reuse like Ray, Bill, Salvatore are just that: names she likes to reuse. Just because she likes the names. (I'm not even sure all her Jim mentions refer to Jimmy Gnecco, though perhaps Jim Morrison.) That said, like K, they could be invented pet names that do refer to a specific person. (I think there's a good possibility Ray at least began as a name for Arthur Lynn.)

I do think there is a case here for this being about Arthur. I'm sure he's into Led Zeppelin. The "American" part fits better. Based on his website and old Instagram posts I'm sure he's a studio rat. But this really seems like it's about a more recent relationship, post-fame, and overall screams Barrie to me.
 
And wouldn't it be a little too on the nose to put Barrie's name in the song? (Or Arthur's?) I'm not sure Lana would be as quick to namedrop in song these days as she was when she tossed off "Jimmy Gnecco" and "So Legit". This might be a deliberate way to obscure.
 
I don't think some of the lyrics really fit the theory that it's about herself. But I am sympathetic to this theory in the sense that there's some amount of projection going on here.
 
Mmm... I think people are making too much of this. Barrie moved to the US and (I think?) recorded his album in the US, has a lot of American musical influences, and stayed in LA for awhile after they broke up trying to get his solo career going. Plus consider Lana's comments at the Brits suggesting she really didn't think of herself as an "international" artist because she lived in the UK while recording BTD there. Never underestimate Lana logic.
 
Really? I'm not necessarily convinced all those songs are exclusively about one guy or about a specific guy, let alone the same guy. You know, back in 2011, 2012 when she was saying stuff to that effect in interviews she wasn't consistent. One interview she'd say they were mostly about one guy, the next she'd say two guys. Taken with other interview comments she's made about songs written about past lovers becoming about the person you're with now, I think Lanalysis is inherently a fool's game (that I nonetheless enjoy playing).
 
           

They did it all for fame.. Now they've lost the game..

Witch Hazel. Witch Hazel.
Betrayal. Betrayal

So in love with this new photoshoot by Neil