lili

Just to remind ya'll that these interpretations don't deny the obvious or literal ones but rather parallel them... Here goes another one.
 
Lust for Life
 
Lana revisits the Hollywood theme, which metaphorically refers to time (movies/stories) and fame, all this set in a larger, timeless whole (the name of the A-ha song "Minor Earth Major Sky" comes to mind). Lust for Life is a brisk and optimistic song but it also has an implicit darker side. Although it celebrates life, passion and self confidence, it also hints at a tragedy connected with the H of the Hollywood sign - the actress Peg Entwistle, who committed suicide by jumping from the H.
 
The notion of a ladder has been pointed out as significant by the director of the album trailer and besides there being a ladder attached to the H (as well as to the other letters of the Hollywood sign), the letter H itself looks like a section of a ladder, with the horizontal piece in the middle as a rung. Towering above the earthly West Coast "city of angels" (associated with the "entrance to the underworld" in Tropico), the ladder may symbolize a connection between the earth and heaven known as Jacob's Ladder, which appeared in a dream of the biblical figure Jacob, with angels ascending and descending on it. Lana also referred to this notion a day before the release of Lust for Life when she posted a short clip on Instagram of a little song of hers in which she sings that she would trade everything for a stairway to heaven and take her time as she climbed up to top of it.
 
But when you are on a ladder and you are not vigilant there is the danger of falling. According to Abrahamic religions as well as esoteric accounts of man's origin there was a major spiritual fall at some point in the past, when man lost contact with heaven/God and got mired on earth. His consciousness closed, as the narrowly focused ego became separated from the heaven-oriented soul. What followed is the human history as we know it. Through the arc of long and often arduous history, the fallen ego was gradually revived and lifted from the caves to the age of space flights and the internet.
 
And so the soul's partner is back, Stargirl and Starboy reunited. But watch out, Lana is hanging out on top of the H with a self-proclaimed "King of the Fall". The word "fall" has a double meaning. One meaning is the season of the fall (autumn), as evidenced in The Weeknd's fall tours. After his first international tour in spring 2012 followed the fall tours: The Weeknd Fall Tour (2012), The Weeknd Kiss Land Fall Tour (2013), King of the Fall (2014), and The Madness Fall Tour (2015). In the song Starboy he aptly mentions: "I come alive in the fall time". His latest tour is titled Starboy: Legend of the Fall Tour, even though it is scheduled to last from February to July 2017, so it refers either to his already established status as the "legend" from the past seasonal fall tours, or to the second meaning of the word "fall". The second meaning of "the fall" is spiritual and is reflected in the general content of his songs: fame and decadence. In the song The Fall, he sings about falling to the ground, and in Starboy he also refers to the Brad Pitt movie Legends of the Fall. The title of this movie seems ambiguous: imdb says that it refers to the biblical fall from innocence, although "the Fall" part was translated as the season (autumn) in countries such as Sweden and France, while in Germany and Spain it was translated as "Passion". Anyway, even in the season of the fall we can find a spiritual meaning: the season is connected with harvest, which in a New Testament parable signifies the end of the age when the righteous are "ripe" for entering heaven and the "wheat" is separated from the "chaff".
 
With man's individuality and consciousness revived, his capacity for self-destruction is restored too. Although we now have a history to learn from, will it be sufficient to prevent another fall?

@litewave I adore your contributions!!

Best American Record
 
Damn this is a good song.

In Lana's art, America is a symbol of God's creation, from the heavenly East Coast to the earthly West Coast, with the nostalgic 1950s-1960s period representing the garden of Eden/Paradise. In the beginning the music of creation unfolded harmoniously under God's benevolent guidance. But the ego of man tried to be too much like God and "write the next best American record", which was an obsession that led to man's extreme self-assertion, separation from God and soul, and falling out of universal harmony.   The soul sings:   My baby used to dance underneath my architecture   The architecture here is the celestial firmament, the spiritual realm of the soul. The baby is the soul's individual expression, the ego, which went down to earth, to the material realm. In the beginning the ego was full of joy and energy, derived from its dynamic contact with the soul. This means that man's spiritual and material sides were in a healthy balance.   To the "Houses of the Holy"
 
"Houses of the Holy" is a Led Zeppelin song from the 1970s, where the singer courts his girl to let him take her "to the movies, to the show". It is a sexual song with spiritual overtones and also with references to Satan. The relationship between the ego and the soul has a masculine-feminine dynamic, which is reflected in human sexual relationships.
 
Smoking on them cigarettes
 
Turning white into black (innocence into experience), burning with passion, breathing the spirit of life.
 
He was seventies in spirit, nineties in his frame of mind
 
Although influenced by the 1960s hippie ideals, the mood of the 1970s turned from the hippie emphasis on community toward individualism (the "Me" decade). This individualistic trend continued in the 1980s and received a new boost in the 1990s from the collapse of communist governments in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union, even as the boundaries between countries and cultures further weakened and unification of the world accelerated. Individualism is the nature of the ego, while collectivism is the nature of the soul.
 
The ego did need to distance itself from the soul - but only for a while, in order to build the mental and physical structures that the soul could infuse at their reunion. But the ego became "obsessed with writing the next best American record", for fame. Its focus on self-aggrandizement and self-gratification isolated it from the soul, from others, and from a larger reality. Man became trapped on earth, ran out of energy and ran out of life.

The Love video envisions a gentle flowering of the potential of human race. Lana speaks to the modern generation, yet they are the ancient children from the paradise, who passed through a darker age and emerged revived on the threshold of freedom. She reminds them of their original purpose, which has been largely forgotten since the fall. Their destiny is to enjoy and participate in universal creation. Limitations of the earth shall be transcended in love. And love is the eternal play of the masculine and the feminine, the never-ending process of analysis and synthesis (solve et coagula).

By far the most interesting thread is read on here! Wow!

So I am not as articulate as the other members on this forum, but the other day, I had bought a book from a thrift shop titled " Four Metaphysical Poets" discussing the works of John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughn, and Richard Crashaw. There was a poem that I found by John Donne under the section Love Unfulfilled  and I saw a poem called Loves Deity.
 
" I long to talk to some old lovers ghost
  Who died before the god of Love was borne"
 
I thought these two lines, with emphasis on the first line, kind of reflected one of Lana's themes in her music which is reminiscing over a lover that has left this world (K). It didn't really hit me until I watched the music video for Shades of Cool, where Lana appears to be a ghost narrating the life of an old lover that she had before she died.
 
This is something that stuck out to me, that's all.

What a ride this thread is

Or maybe she is a Sophia and the dark cabin is a transcendental timeless perspective from which she "puts on the music". As she appears to be standing by a window, looking out and watching the "cult leader", she reminds me of Lady of Shalott. I imagine that a timeless point of view is sort of "mundane" too, in the sense that there isn't much going on lol. Everything is there, but it's dormant, hidden, unexpressed. "I am half sick of shadows," said the Lady of Shalott.
 
 
Oh, the cabin scene is so murky that I didn't even think of reflections but it makes sense: the realm (or perspective) of time is like a moving reflection, or manifestation, of the timeless realm. Here is another nice picture that seems to portray this kind of idea:
 

 
 
Bear looks like such a strong and down to earth animal, while owls are associated with wisdom and mystery. A duality seems to be symbolized here, and I also get vibes of masculinity and femininity. The bear is also on the flag of California, the land of materialism, individualism and time (golden gods, silver starlets, movies). But I am sure these animals have also other symbolic associations in various traditions.

Reading http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Paradise-Esotericism-Literature-Consciousness/dp/0791461394
 
 
When she wished to die, and spoke of Melancholia as Ultraviolent Initiation, I saw a kindred soul. When I see the pop starlet with immaculate hair on the red carpet, it does not speak of me. Yet even tracks like "Heavy Hitter," "TV in Black and White" and "She's Not Me" seem to reveal deep waters beneath their plastic forms.
 
The cabin is the world of the mundane, where "It's all been done before," the ennui of modernity becomes curiosity as one reaches down into an unknown darkness. The wish to be something more than human (per David Bowie) becomes an imitation of Sophia's original creative act.
 
"It's been an interesting journey. I feel like this year I'm only just starting to figure out the perspective I've written the last four records from" -- whose perspective?
 

 
"Burned into my brain are these stolen images"
 
Lizzy was a fresh-faced innocent opening strange doors that would never be closed again -- the blonde (Lizzy) meeting the brunette (Lana) in the waters and dying to that self. ("Deeper and deeper, looking for love in all the wrong places ...")
 
The "Cult Leader" is man as priest and mediator of a feminine Shekinah presence, he who enters the Holy of Holies and communes directly with God -- but in our modern world, the Church no longer fulfills this function; it has become an empty and murderous Manson Family disconnected from the Source (Family). Isis in the Aquarian Age:
 

 
"Something happened on the day he died
Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried: (I'm a blackstar, I'm a blackstar)"   (Ground Control to Major Tom)  
"In the name of higher consciousness
... I'd rather know what God knows"   "Palm trees in black and white Was the last thing I saw before I died Right line, right man Right mixture of cocaine and heroin Do you wanna jump, jump, jump?"   To die before one dies, to jump into the Abyss and know what only God knows

"I am my only God" remids me of the myth of Narcissus, as well as this image of her touching the surface of the opaque black water in the round pool (also, there are Alice In Wonderland allusions, especially with the tripping delirium):
 

 
as well as a portal to the haunted house of doppelgangers (god, pure, and evil, corrupted facets of the same person descended in the realm of the shadows) full of identical bloody cherry red rooms in David Lynch´s "Twin Peaks" - a purgatory of sorts, a test for a pure in encounter with the evil spirit Bob - if it succumbs, only its shadow self returns to the face of the Earth, to the daylight:
 

 

 
 
The log lady from "Twin Peaks" claims that owls are not what they seem (they are actually the angels of death, forshadowers of trouble and demise), and the wooden cabin from "Freak" is full of taxidermy animals from the darkwoods, owl among them, that resemble heralds of death or emblems of resurrection/afterlife.
 
And, because you are your only God, you yourself must face and live with your own Devils, there is no shortcut, escape or magnus trickus

I think even contemplative introverts generally feel happier in the summer (maybe with the exception of depressives who dislike being reminded of the fun others are having). It's just that people usually focus on their ability to romanticize the darkness and desolation of winter, because it is comparatively rare in non-introverts. But I also tend to think that Lana's melancholy and introversion is exaggerated for the most part. To me it's pretty clear that she's fun-loving (references cheap thrills and sensual pleasures often) and a natural born people-person who really gets off on outwardly projecting her best 'self', partly for the enjoyment of others. I get the feeling her love of interpersonal contact isn't just limited to the meaningful/intimate stuff and that she feels most in her element when she's being wild, carefree, and expressive. It seems that if anything, Lana's melancholy arises from the high expectations of lasting happiness she has, and that she uses this melancholy as artistic fuel for the dramatic musical/visual aesthetic that she loves so much.

Note this line from the recent NME interview: "I am surprisingly similar to the person in those songs"  
 
Lizzy says she is wholly this "Lana" archetype already illustrated in her imaginal crystallizations (not a 'persona' because 'Ms. Grant' was the name written on her wallet ID that was ceremonially sacrificed) -- "i am my only god"
 

 

 
"Dive in, dive deep and dive blue, my sweet
Rushing up from the water where the ice meets"   Your Cult Leader meets your Jazz Singer as Hierophant and High Priestess down through history in an Initiation into higher consciousness, ending the division of the two churches   The LSD tab becomes the PEYOTE shirt from Ultraviolence as noetic Pepsi-Cola   Sophia (the dove) seeing her reflection in the waters of Chaos (the Dead Pool) and running to meet it, becoming a "Freak" exiled from the mundane, drinking the cup of poison that Christ begged to be taken from him   "California" as the Western lands of Underworld as Paradise (Lost)

Just for the record... shades of red dominate the first half of the Freak video, and shades of blue the second, with some white in between.
 
Daylight, moonlight, and a moment of silence in between.
 
Two worlds in one.

The picture above portrays progressive differentiation of timeless, undifferentiated oneness into separate individuals. In the MTWBT video, Lana lying alone on the lounge chair represents the ultimate/universal soul, the kissing/embracing underwater girls represent the souls and the competing boys represent the egos, the peaks of individuation. She puts on the music, camera's on, time begins to flow. "This is what makes us girls, we don't stick together 'cause we put our love first" - as the souls individualize they eventually separate into the egos.
 
The duality of differentiation and unification, or masculinity and femininity, produces the music (life) and seems to be represented by the two gramophones revolving in opposite directions. Lana also seems to suggest this duality by emphasizing her headphones with flowers, as the sound from the right ear is processed in the analytic left brain hemisphere and the sound from the left ear in the holistic right hemisphere (in general, each brain hemisphere is connected to the opposite half of the body).
 
The colors or lack thereof in this video are apparently a deliberate symbolism too. There is the blue color of water that can be associated with heaven and (because of the underwater girls) femininity and there is the pink color of the flamingos. I think the flamingos represent masculinity: their long necks with heads and beaks on the end look like probes (analysis) and their pink/reddish color suggests earthly/carnal orientation (as the opposite of the heavenly blue). Flamingos are wading birds though, so they are in contact with water (egos in contact with souls).
 
The black and white scenes represent the opposite extremes of reality: the undifferentiated oneness where everything is hidden in the timeless potential, including colors, and the purely earthly realm where differentiation reaches the point of maximum contrast, stark black and white, with no place for colors. Colors, vividness, life -- are to be found between the extremes...

^^ Not sure about that ...
 
 
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant all ... you may see how it ties into MTWBT
 
I see the "red dress" symbol as Objectified Other (i.e. the Tropico/Carmen pole dancer) in contrast to the White Dress
 
Cult of Isis: http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta10.htm 
 
 

 

 

 
(Ruth Hoberman)  
 
Below the Abyss in our outer world of the senses, beastly boys fight for girls on TV in black and white.   Above the Abyss in her inner world of pneumatic realities, blonde girls kissing brunette girls in color. The individual soul becomes one with the Universal Soul; Lizzy becomes one with Lana. Deeper and deeper.   The camera Subject perceiving the starlet as the Object. Pink flamingos are ironic and kitsch representations of Americana, of which she is fascinated. Which is to say, it is the Feminine Mystique.   Soul perceived as unknown Other vs. Soul as apprehended from the depths of one's own waters.    "Don't leave me now Don't say good bye Don't turn around Leave me high and dry"   "I'm finally happy now that you're gone. Put my little red party dress on, Everybody knows that I'm the best, I'm crazy."   "I, I see you're going So I play my music, watch you leave"   She as the Goddess sees her children falling away from her as they are lost in the external world of time and space. But out of her love for them, she will play her siren song for them, in hopes of remembrance.   Once again this maddening bitch has everything figured out already, and thus has nothing to do but wait for the rest of the Cruel World to return to her transtemporal Omega Point. Lolita in the Garden knowing what only the girls know, spinning Yé-yé tracks to pass the time.    La Belle Dame Sans Merci sent to destroy her acolytes: http://www.bartleby.com/126/55.html   The invitation in her smile is, 'Know me as I truly am, and not as I appear.'  

I just posted this on the Burn Norton lyrics thread but I thought that it is probably more appropriate here :
 
To be honest, I've been so used to this idea that I don't even know which esoteric movements proclaim it. The only movement I recall actively using Tarot Cards to change their future are people practicing Chaos Magick. 
What do you think about it? 

Lana was born on solstice (21 june) (so she is a solstice babe - and she loves summer so much, which is the time of her life arcadia and fulfillment of her dreams, the blissful paradise state; everything concerning winter in her songs, literally or metaphorically, is related to depression/dark night of the soul, mourning the break up of a relationship, loneliness or blues of the soul in general - except for her mentioning Christmas time and the day "we met in December"). (Ok, here I brought the notion of the opposition inside the same category - winter-summer solstice).
And that is often what I was astonished about - usually melancholic and introverted people prefer aloofness, stillness and contemplative desolation of the winter, and Lana, of the same temperament, is so attached to bright summer days - maybe to exhilarate too much water (emotions) with the glorious fire chariots of the Sun.

My God, Loreleilee,
 
that was an amazing read thru. Hurt my brain (in a good way), i feel like i'm gaining brain cells every time i read your posts.. and litewave ..
(sorry for lack of anything intelligent i can add to it..other than consider my ass slayed.)
Thanks litewave, love reading your posts.

I just meant a reference to light and dark. Solstice is the longest day and shortest night or vice versa, depending on whether it's the beginning of summer or winter. On equinox day and night are about the same length on the whole planet.
 
Edit: Lana also posted a video on September 23 but took it down a while later. Most people probably missed it but some on this forum know. It was of herself watching a Youtube video of Joni Mitchell performing "Both Sides Now".  

So, The White Goddess stands for all other female pagan deities in Europe, or behind them? I've read she has also three faces which represent the stages of the Moon, which means she is a tripple goddess and that resonates with Lana being often in tryad of colours: black, white and red. I guess that is related with nigredo, albedo and rubedo, and on the other hand, with hell, purgatory and heaven, and with the stages of woman as a maiden, mother and crone. Or maybe Lana being young nymphet, wounded girl and independent superwoman (but you've already wrote all about that, so I won't repeat myself)
 
Despite Lana her being haunted by the male loves of her life, I couldn't envision Muse as a guy (because she was actually desperately trying to permanently fall in love with herself, or to make her androginuos God to return to the temple of her body and soul; lack of (self)love = God is dead).
 
Maybe that proves the existence of collective consciousness and the laws that are applicable to everyone, no matter what sex or gender we are: Muse is by definition female, because a woman is the Other, mysterious, tricky and elusive; man is the doer and active creator of history, a concrete and simple creature, woman is receptive vase that gathers all enigmas or fluid mirage in hundred veils, complex within itself, like a snake that bites its own tail. (And Muse is also mostly idealized woman, Madonna, vs. Whore, although Baudelaire's muses were very terrestrial, carnal and salacious, even literally dirty, decaying and rotten. Him and Rimbaud imported the aesthetics of ugliness, as something that inflames imagination to create more vivid, shocking, palpable and sensual imaginery. Symbolism in general was a turning point in the perception of feminity versus romanticist ethereal elations and obsessions over unreachable „Ladies“ in celestial thrones of unsatisfied desire and longing, and they turned to contemporary time and the very changes that arrived, including the surmise of women gaining their social and political rights, which was, I guess, partial reason of dethroning and demistifying women in general. Ancient muse doesn't have a mind or a soul of herself, she's a mere apparition, somethimes terrifying, omnipotent yet unatainable phantom - she's a "Belle Dame Sans Merci". Modern women are finally given voice and have become human and real, multidimensional, so impenetrable Sphynx became Picasso's distorted and vulnerable "Weeping Woman").
 
I think all of Lizzy's and Lana's boyfriends are just a vehicle, a medium of one spirit she drags from one body to another, having in mind an ideal that is modeled out of puzzle pieces of her dudes' traits. They are not important, important is the idea of love and merging lovers or animus and anima in sacred heavenly marriage, feeling mystical ecstasy, like St. Theresa (you've said that too).
 
And, before she had internalized patriarchal and sadistic male gaze, inverted towards herself as an object (submissive, needy, masochistic, suffering but beautiful and seductive, sometimes treating herself as a piece of meat or an unworthy prostitute), and now she reverts it into assertive, emancipating female gaze (for example, when she reaches for typical male weapon in High By The Beach and attacks intruding male stare in self-defence and reclaiming power over her whole being, or when she is „watching boys to“, like a matron/dominatrix/mafia widow observing sexy but deindividualized mannequins in a parade of flesh). She is also "sent to destroy" (Kali, threatening goddess with skulls around her neck), dangerous, coldhearted and sick of the bullshit that honey-tongued sleazes serve her as an agency of corruption.
Interestingly, she often mentions Federico Fellini, who is, like Pedro Almodovar, fiery admirer of the womanhood in all of its aspects and eagerly, fiercely pays tribute to female archetypes in his movies, where women are always superior to men, because they are fragile feelers, but at the same time so strong and intellectually and emotionally giant that they bear the burden of entire planet and universe on their shoulders, always having very thorny and excruciating path in this earthly life and going through thousand little deaths and resurrections. He displays compassion towards their martyrdom, and also nurtures awe and lustful trepidation in front of vamps, who are pure primal force of nature (as Courtney Love, Lana's temporary companion, once proudly claimed for herself). 
 
And, considering The Cult Of Isis, she wears red robe, and maybe that is the reason of Lana's trope of red dress, which she mentions everytime in the song she is about doing something special: visiting club, attending a ball, a ceremony, seducing her tiger or taking an intimate ride with her babe on the heavenly side, mostly whenever she wants to be seen and to display herself (those special moments equate the festival of worshiping Isis).
 
 
But, I will stop now because I have a feeling most of it was already said and I am talking too much, and I will follow your correspondencies.  

In early 1990s historian and philosopher Richard Tarnas summarized it as follows:
 
http://www.gaiamind.org/Tarnas.html
 
This synthesis is apparently facilitated by globalization, by communication and information technologies and generally increasing interconnectedness. It is taking place on many levels, from the interaction between the analytic/individualistic West and the holistic/collectivistic East through interaction between regional traditions, organizations and political orientations, between science/technology and religion/art, through male-female relationships, to the microcosm of each individual's mind, in the interaction between the analytic left brain hemisphere and the holistic right brain hemisphere. It involves tensions and perils but it is an opportunity for development and integration of complementary aspects of our nature.
 
In a sense this could be interpreted as the realization of the prophecies about the coming of God's kingdom on earth: God enters earth as a fuller expression of the Trinity, as a deepening and integration of polarities in human life, reflecting the polarities of the analytic Logos and the holistic Pneuma (differentiation and unification) that are eternally present in the Father.
 
I think this is encapsulated in the image on the cover of Pink Floyd's album The Division Bell:
 

Lana's giving off "I just finished a masterpiece" energy these last two weeks 

I had a plan to listen all of Lana’s discography yesterday. When I reached NFR, I realized something. I love the idea of the songs on it, but not the songs themselves. I love the title track, MAC, Venice Bitch, think they’re great but also can’t help but feel annoyed… like they’re missing something, like they’re songs that couldn’t reach their full potential somehow. Anyway, I turned it off after Love Song.
 
My personal opinion on what Lana and Jack do together is that I love and get the idea that is there, but it seems to lack the “alchemy” Lana said to have with Dan for example. I’m not saying I want Ultraviolence 2.0, Ultraviolence was a gem on its own, but because I believe in her ability to play in new, exciting soundscapes, I do hope she finds that “alchemy” with another producer. This is just my take on the situation as a listener though and nothing else.
 
 

Lana at an Italian Gucci fashion show after wearing $18 Shein dresses, and dancing to SS remix after making country and folk music is like

I had a plan to listen all of Lana’s discography yesterday. When I reached NFR, I realized something. I love the idea of the songs on it, but not the songs themselves. I love the title track, MAC, Venice Bitch, think they’re great but also can’t help but feel annoyed… like they’re missing something, like they’re songs that couldn’t reach their full potential somehow. Anyway, I turned it off after Love Song.
 
My personal opinion on what Lana and Jack do together is that I love and get the idea that is there, but it seems to lack the “alchemy” Lana said to have with Dan for example. I’m not saying I want Ultraviolence 2.0, Ultraviolence was a gem on its own, but because I believe in her ability to play in new, exciting soundscapes, I do hope she finds that “alchemy” with another producer. This is just my take on the situation as a listener though and nothing else.