She seems preoccupied by repetition, rituals, iconography. It feels almost religious. I believe she truly is a visual thinker, and tries to use her words to paint the obsessive scenery she loves. I like how she talks about how words sound; their universally understood meaning or context isn't so important to her, which I think gets her in trouble with more linear types (journalists) in interviews, etc. The title Ultraviolence is a good example. She knows its pop cultural history, but she bends the word itself to her own will. It's all how it makes her feel, and how she can use word and motifs as tools to create new meanings. For her, language is an intuitive art like everything else.
Red dress. Blood red jam. Red lipstick. Red nail polish. Red, white, blue. Blue dark. Blue jeans. Blue hands. Blue mascara. Boy blue. Swayin'. Swingin'. Driving fast, 'bout 99, in cars with boys, alone. The list goes on.
I enjoy how sensory-oriented her lyrics are, but I get the sense she does this knowing that concrete words can hold a lot of abstract power, not because she literally only thinks about things in terms of their color etc. I get the sense she approaches melody-writing similarly; she's fine recycling her own motifs because it reinstates the ritualistic nature of her music. That said, I am hungry for new metaphors and themes from her. I'm sure the music she makes in her 30s will reveal a whole new part of her mind and soul.