ChicaCherryCola

Me, a person who's never been to LA and has no idea what she's really talking about:

"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."
 
Okay... Who are these husbands and ex-husbands she keeps talking about?

If there's never-ending podcasts on it, a 40 minute book with piano sounds by a top streamer artist wouldn't be that out of place

No idea, but the way she repeats that question across the poem kills me 

If there's never-ending podcasts on it, a 40 minute book with piano sounds by a top streamer artist wouldn't be that out of place

Mmm
Ooh
 
Blackbirds will sing in the same key
As you play in the shoes that I bought you
& Sweet baby Jane don't know a thing
About my songs, but she knows I'm a monsoon 
 
& Baby you
All the things you do
& the ways you move
Send me straight to heaven
Baby you 
What you never knew
What I never said
Is you're my living legend
 
Hipsters will sing just like a dream
In Sin-é or the back Brooklyn bayou 
But you never cared about my name
& darling I never meant to defy you
 
But baby you
All them things you do
& those ways you moved
Send me straight to heaven
& baby you
I never said to you
You really are
My living legend
 
I got guns in the summertime
& horses too
Guns in the summertime
& horses too
I never meant to be bad or unwell
I was just living on the edge
Right between heaven and hell
& I'm tired of it
 
Ooh
All the things you do
& the ways you move
Send me straight to heaven
& Baby you
What I never said to you
Is you really are
My living legend
 
Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why
Why, why, why, why
Why, why, why, why
Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why
Why
 
My living legend
My living legend
My living legend
My living legend

You're da best. Thank you for always staying on top of the wild boards ♥

If there's never-ending podcasts on it, a 40 minute book with piano sounds by a top streamer artist wouldn't be that out of place

If there's never-ending podcasts on it, a 40 minute book with piano sounds by a top streamer artist wouldn't be that out of place

This might be the poem that touched me the most on a first read. Really straight to the point, autobiographical, and I could just feel it.

If there's never-ending podcasts on it, a 40 minute book with piano sounds by a top streamer artist wouldn't be that out of place

I am kinda still reeling from this. Kudos to this being properly releasing and not having some random 10 year old leak it #CassetteGirl
 
This just elevates her legitimacy as one of America's greatest artists even higher. I really resisted reading too much or weighing into her poetry before now, but listening to her words and the authenticity in the delivery, I think this is one of her greatest artistic creations . . . maybe the best. Listening to the her speak the words conjures up so many images but the intertextual references to her body of work (and directly to Norman FUCKING Rockwell!) are also clever and considered to the point where it feels familiar. And the stories she tells are heartbreaking, beautiful, hopeful - there are too many good moments to mention but the best of the album is Sports Cruiser, where she earnestly confesses her self-doubt and imposter syndrome before resolving to change. The vulnerability is stunning. That, or the serene horror of Bare Feet on Linoleum, where a cacophony of voices ask questions over and over along with rising, moaning strings and synths - creating a terrifying dimension as Lana speaks over them before joining in as if she's been hypnotised. Awesome.
 
I've totally disregarded Jack's contributions to NFR in the past, but his incidental music took me totally by surprise. I'm sorry. @Jarred is right. His music has huge range, like I said drawing from all kinds of sounds that remind me of Brian Eno's scores to Debussy's pianos. It's the perfect level of pleasant without boarding into obnoxiously inappropriate. Delicate soft electronic wefts that sparkle, soft and lilting pianos, quirky jazz that flows like a radio play - it accentuates Lana's vulnerability, and without it the work would not be the same. 
 
I am looking forward to rearranging a playlist of NFR's songs and Violet's poems, which I think would flow amazingly, and definitely allow a bit more variety. I think the scrappy, unpolished vocals on their own would've sounded bizarre but among the well produced sound, it couldn't have been more authentic.
 
I have mocked the process in the past but I'm definitely eating shit now because this was so, so worth it. Lana I'll never question you again I'M SORRY.

Me, a person who's never been to LA and has no idea what she's really talking about:

Me, a person who's never been to LA and has no idea what she's really talking about:

This might be the poem that touched me the most on a first read. Really straight to the point, autobiographical, and I could just feel it.

This might be the poem that touched me the most on a first read. Really straight to the point, autobiographical, and I could just feel it.

Me, a person who's never been to LA and has no idea what she's really talking about:

Ugh this is so cute and also very relatable (not the flying lessons, but the overall attitude) 

This might be the poem that touched me the most on a first read. Really straight to the point, autobiographical, and I could just feel it.

I think its all the men she has been with. 

"My intructor, younger than I, but as tough as you,
Instructed me to do a simple maneuverer.
It’s not that I didn’t do it,
But I was slow to lean the sports cruiser into a right hand upward turn.
Scared, scared that I would lose control of the plane.
Not tactfully and not gently,
The instructor shook his head, and without looking at me said
“You don’t trust yourself”.
I was horrified.
Feeling as though I’d somehow been found out.
Like he knew me,
How weak I was.
Of course, he was only talking about my ability as a pilot in the sky,
But I knew it was meant for me to hear those words."
--
I’m not a pilot.
I write!
 
 
This reminded me of an interview she did with Zane Lowe back in 2018, where she referenced this exact moment and how it influenced her to begin writing more (10:00-11:50): 
"This is when I also started to write more poetry. One of the most interesting things that happened to me was I couldn't take control, and my pilot instructor, who's much younger than me, he asked me to turn up and to the right into a righthand turn. & I did it, but I did it so slowly that it didn't even really turn. He just looked at me and he was like, 'You don't trust yourself.' He was literally only talking about with the plane, but for me I thought, shit. Thank god I didn't have a breakdown, I felt like I knew I needed to hear that. I was like, oh my god, I really don't. 'Cause it's so simple. The plane drives like a stick shift 'cause I'm in a sportcruiser. All you have to do is move the stick to the right, but I couldn't even do it. I think I realized how I am still so scared of so much. Of course, the sailing is another metaphor. They have a lot of the same language. I think it's all about being in the driver's seat, if you will. I'm all about metaphors. I actually said something to him, I was like, you're right. I don't trust myself. I really don't. & he looked at me like, get it together. That's when I realised. I don't want to say that's when I realised I'm not a pilot, but I realised I'm a writer. I'm not a pilot, but I could be. That's where my head went. It's funny, even with his instruction my head still went to how am I turning this into a rhyming stanza?"
 

Sportcruiser
 
I took a flying lesson on my 33rd birthday instead of calling you,
Or parking on the block where our old place used to be.
 
Genesee, Genesee, Genesee
 
Pathetic, I know, but sometimes I still like to park on that street,
And have lunch in the car just to feel close to you.
 
I was once in love with my life here,
In that studio apartment with you.
Little yellow flowers on the tops of trees as our only view,
Out of the only window,
Big enough for me to see our future through.
 
But it turned out I was the only one that could see it.
 
Stupid apartment complex.
Terrible you.
You, who I wait for.
You, you, you.
Like a broken record stuck on loop.
 
So that day, on my birthday, I thought,
‘Something has to change’
You can’t always be about waiting for you.
 
Don’t tell anyone, but part of my reasoning for taking the flight class
Was this idea that if I could become my own navigator,
A captain of the sky,
That perhaps I could stop looking for direction from you.
 
Well, what started off as an idea on a whim
Has turned into something more.
Too shy to explain to the owners that my first lesson was just a one-time thing,
I’ve continued to go to classes each week
At the precious little strip off Santa Monica and Bundy.
 
And everything was going fine.
We were starting with dips and loops,
and then something terrible happened.
 
During my fourth lesson in the sky,
My intructor, younger than I, but as tough as you,
Instructed me to do a simple maneuverer.
It’s not that I didn’t do it,
But I was slow to lean the sportcruiser into a righthand upward turn.
Scared
Scared that I would lose control of the plane.
 
Not tactfully and not gently,
The instructor shook his head, and without looking at me said,
'You don’t trust yourself.'
 
I was horrified.
Feeling as though I’d somehow been found out.
Like he knew me
How weak I was.
Of course, he was only talking about my ability as a pilot in the sky,
But I knew it was meant for me to hear those words.
 
For me, they held a deeper meaning.
I didn’t trust myself.
 
Not just 2500 feet above the coast of Malibu,
But with anything.
And I didn’t trust you.
I could’ve said something, but I was quiet.  
Because pilots aren’t like poets.
They don’t make metaphors between life and the sky.
 
In the midst of this mid-life meltdown, navigational exercise in self-examination,
I also decided to do something else I had always wanted to do:
Take sailing lessons in the vibrant bay of Marina del Rey.
I signed up for the glasses under ‘Elizabeth Grant’,
And nobody blinked an eye.
 
So, why was I so sure that when I walked into the tiny shack on Valley Way, someone would say,
'You’re not a captain of a ship, or a master of the sky!'
No.
The fisherman didn’t care, and so neither did I.
 
And for a brief moment, I felt more myself than ever before.
Letting the self proclaimed drunkard captain’s lessons wash over me like the foamy tops of the sea.
 
Midway through my forehead burned,
and my hands raw from driving,
The captain told me the most important think I would need to know on the sea.
 
'Never run the ship into irons'
That’s nautical terms for not sailing the boat directly into the wind.
 
In order to do that though, you have to know where the wind is coming from.
And you might not have time to look up at the mast,
Or up further to the weather vein.
So you have to feel where the wind is coming from.
On your cheeks, and by the tips of the white waves from which direction they’re rolling.
 
To do this, he gave me an exercise.
He told me to close my eyes, and asked me to feel on my neck which way the wind was blowing.
I already knew I was going to get it wrong.
'The wind is coming from everywhere. I feel it all over' I told him.
'No,' he said.
'The wind is coming from the left. The portside.'
I sat waiting for him to tell me, 'You don’t trust himself.'
But he didn’t, so I said it for him.
'I don’t trust myself,'
 
He laughed, gentler than the pilot, but still not realising that my failure in the exercise was hitting me at a much deeper level.
 
'It’s not that you don’t trust yourself' he said. 'It’s simply that you’re not a captain. It isn’t what you do.'
 
Then he told me he wanted me to practise everyday so I would get better.
 
'Which grocery store do you go to?' he asked.
'To the Ralphs in the Palisades,' I replied.
 
'Okay. When you’re in the Ralphs in the Palisades,
I want you, as you walking from your car to the store,
To close your eyes, and feel which way the wind is blowing.
Now, I don’t want you to look like a crazy person crouching in the middle of the parking lot,
but everywhere you go,
I want you to try and find which way the wind is coming in from.
And then, determine if it’s from the port or starboard side,
So when you’re back on the boat you have a better sense of it.'
 
I thought his advice was adorable.
I could already picture myself in the parking lot,
Squinting my eyes with perfect housewives looking on.
 
I could picture myself growing a better sense of which way the wind was blowing.
And as I did, a tiny bit of deeper trust also began to grow within myself.
I thought of mentioning it,
but I didn’t.
Because captain’s aren’t like poets.
They don’t make metaphors between the sea and sky.
 
And as I thought that to myself,
I realised
That’s why I write.
 
All this this circumnavigating the earth
Was to get back to my life.
Six trips to the moon for my poetry to arise.
 
I’m not a captain,
I’m not a pilot.
I write!
I write!
 
 
 
Thank you to @ takeitdoen for the transcript, as it has been released in Australia x

@@takeitdoen thank u so much for transcribing everything u are an angel

7 hours left UK girlies

"My friends tell me to stop calling 911 on the culture,
but it’s either that or I 5150 myself."
 
This gives me The Greatest/"Kanye West is blonde and gone" vibes instead of Lana's Instagram posts from May vibes or at least that's what I hope she meant by this