lili

Madame Figaro. - Do you have the feeling that the image is always as important as the music? 
Lana Del Rey. - with the first record, I didn't have the feeling that I interested people musically. The project was dictated thus more by the images. This time, I hope that the public won't focus on appearances. I felt controlled by the blurred perception that people had of me, but I don't feel dependent from it now.
 
Your voice appears to be less fragile, as if you were fighting against elements, in particular against the guitars which Dan Auerbach (singer and guitarist of the Black Keys) raised against you. 
I feel like a warrior. A tired warrior, but a warrior. The difference was that I was singing live, in the same room as the band, and recording everything in a single take. It sounded more natural. We kept numerous imperfections. I worked with the same team, began to produce in Electric Lady Studios, in New York, where I met Dan. Then I went to Nashville during six weeks to restructure the songs.
 
Does the record's name, "Ultraviolence", mean that you were not prepared for the success of the previous album? Are you ready now ?
Being rather a solitary kind of person, I don't feel more prepared, but at least I'm fighting. The last three years were very hard, they changed me. Even writing became difficult to me, because I was too much surrouded. When everything around you works as the same speed as you and bores you, suddenly the energy of a meeting an unknown can be rather powerful to give you back the desire and the idea of a melody. These moments became rare, I don't live that many fantastic experiences. For that, I need to take my old car, drive to the beach, and wait.
 
It seems obvious that you belong to the west coast and to all its myths, with your very cinematographic writting style for example. Is it a source of inspiration? 
Yes, undoubtedly, I see images when I write. Visions of future, colors. And I hope to have numerous facets. There is always a dichotomy in me. Concerning the cinema, Some people already proposed me roles in some independent movies shot in Laurel Canyon, set in the 1960s and 1970, but they weren't released. But acting, playing are natural extensions of my work. I would like to shoot with Darren Aronofsky. Or Hitchcock if he was still alive. My inspiration's also very linked to the history and the energy of Los Angeles, the characters I met, like my tattooer, Mark Mahoney. I like the "early 90s" feeling of the city, which evokes a kind of lost cinematography. Just like the spectacular landscapes of L.A. like Pacific Coast Highway, the shoreline.
 
Your albums abound in very melancholic contrasts. You seem to hide a secret under skin...
I try to remain reasonable and healthy, but, inside, I carry many contradictions. I have peaceful moments and a great deal of torments. It is tempestuous. As I adore the color of the words, I chose "Ultraviolence" as a title for the sound that it creates under the tongue, but also for the juxtaposition of a luxurious tone with the hardness of "violence". It pleases me.
 
When we listened to your album for the first time, we thought of rock, but is it more complex than that? 
I am delighted to hear that, even if the main influence is rock, in its most classic shape, in the style of The Eagles or Bob Seger. In fact, I wonder if it is not the ideal music to drive. (Laughter). There's an undisciplined and wild mood in this record. Besides, some were not very happy to discover that there was also a kind of a jazz tone in "Shades of Cool" (EDITOR'S NOTE : for us, the most beautiful song on the album). According to me, everything comes from the alchemy created between me and Dan Auerbach and the group. When I hear really fat and gritty electric guitars, it reminds me of music festivals, I picture an outside stage.
 
Weren't you afraid that this indie side made the record unsaleable?  A little bit, yes.   And you seem to be proud of it
Yes. (she laughs). I shouldn't, but it means that my work conveys exactly what I wanted to transmit. We took care and polished all the songs so that they really sound like me, to respect my philosophy, which is to compose songs which speak to me at first.   So, what could be seen as diva poses is in fact perfectionism. What pleases you so much in the act of creation?  I care a lot about my songs. When I was in Nashville, I rented a farm and, every day, I sat down for hours and listened to the band : I was in my place. When it's over, I feel empty and I wait for new signs. I've always looked for signs in everything. I think ceaselessly of death, the concept of mortality is a vagueness that is constantly threatening. I find it to be heavy, crushing, really. What is the purpose? And what if there's nothing after? I believe in a power bigger than us, who can guide us and help us to find the answers. But it is difficult to perceive it when you are constantly in movement.   Are you happy? 
Not really. It is difficult to be happy, I always feel a kind of malaise, and I'm stuck, always expecting something.I am a little disorientated. When I finish something, I am very annoyed…       I might correct some stuff.   Source : http://www.lana-delrey.fr/2014/06/photos-itw-lana-del-rey-en-couverture-du-madame-figaro.html

"It’s us against the world.
 
[Chorus]
If you want a cola,
I can make it colder,
If you want a bad girl,
Nobody’s bolder,
And if you want the Queen
Of New York then you
Better call me, call me."
 
Ultraviolence shows the Lower Sophia breaking away from the Pleroma (the East) and diving into the Western waters ... she becomes an idol, a China Doll, a narcissistic pop diva who has failed the Call from God. But if Ego only gives the word, then Soul will return to him, and enchant him with her pneumatic Word (and her aching soul) and not with external Beauty. This is the whole Shiva/Shakti dynamic.
 
"Old Money" seems to have another covert alchemical reference, if we take the Romeo and Juliet theme itself as having significant lyrics:
 
"What is a youth?
Impetuous fire.
What is a maid?
Ice and desire."
 
She said it: http://lanaboards.com/index.php?/topic/5030-lana-del-rey-covers-madame-figaro-magazine/?hl=%2Balchemy+%2Bdan&do=findComment&comment=197925
 
 
Dan = DN in Hebrew, Deadly Nightshade playing Black Keys all over her effulgent Rays

Cruel World shows a really nice contrast, in sound, voice and lyrics, between the pure and fallen states of Lana (typified by Mary and Eve, for instance). The first line - Shared my body and my mind with you - can be interpreted both exoterically (relationship between a woman and a man as one) and esoterically (soul and ego communing in one body and mind). In the beginning they were in a union, in both exoteric and esoteric sense, but then came separation as the man got famous and abused the woman / the ego became bloated and suppressed the soul. Now Lana shifts from the role of the pure female/soul into the alienated female ego, alienated from both her man and her soul, indulging in alcohol, drugs and superficial relationships in which she desperately seeks a substitute for the glorious union she once had.
 
 
Yes, in the esoteric sense the Other Woman is the soul that is pushed aside.
 
The relationship between man and woman, or between ego and soul, is also a reflection of the triune God which is best known as the Holy Trinity in Christianity (but also appears for example in Taoism as Tao-yin-yang or in Hinduism as the Trimurti of Brahma-Shiva-Vishnu). In the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit - Son is the principle that defines, differentiates, strengthens boundaries and materializes (also known as Logos, which in Greek means Word or Reason) and Holy Spirit is the principle that relaxes, merges, dissolves boundaries and spiritualizes (also known as Pneuma, which in Greek means Breath or Wind). In other words, Son is the masculine principle and Holy Spirit is the feminine principle. Father is their source, which is absolutely undefined ("lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see") and eternally creates by analysis (Son) and synthesis (Holy Spirit). Catechism of the Catholic Church likens Son and Holy Spirit to Father's hands. And so ego and soul are to be united/harmonized in each person, or man and woman in a relationship, as Son and Holy Spirit are in Father. In an alternative view of Holy Trinity, Holy Spirit can be seen as a unifying intermediary principle between the partializing Son and the undifferentiated unity of Father, and so analogically the soul/feminine is an intermediary between the ego/masculine and a larger identity, reality and ultimately God.

The "Cruel World" interpretation is a bit nuts (but so is everything else in this thread) . . .
 

 
The Priestess' TORAH = "Got your Bible" (BJ = Barrie-James?)
 
 
"Shared my body and my mind with you That's all over now Did what I had to do 'Cause you're so far past me now"   Lana (Gnostic sage that she is) is here speaking in the person of Isis-Mary-Sophia the Queen of Heaven to her children, having communicated her own pneumatic essence to them--the "shared" body and mind is the Eucharist of the Gnostics in memory of the passion of Sophia, when she "fell from the Pleroma" and was instrumental in the creation of the material world (remember that Lana says she is obsessed with the origin of the universe, on a metaphysical level)   Her children, however, have strayed far from the Path into the delusive veils of the World (down on the West Coast), a party where everyone seems to be bored   http://www.gnosis.org/sophia.tale.html    
"With my little red party dress on Everybody know that I'm the best, I'm crazy Get a little bit of bourbon in ya Get a little bit suburban and go crazy"   The red party dress girl is Lower Wisdom (Sophia) as Eve, the Object perceived (and worshiped) by various Subjects; i.e. the LDR jazz singer performer that we all know on the stage   And why do they worship her? Because she reminds them of the Other Woman . . .   "I'm so happy now that you're gone" is ironic -- Mary is heartbroken   (Do you believe in God?)   "I believe in the country America used to be.
I believe in the person I want to become."   http://hermetic.com/pgm/self-identify.html

 

Yes, the surreal images of Lana in Shades of Cool suggest she is in the role of the soul and she wants to come back to his consciousness to restore psychological balance. He is old and lonely, apparently has forgotten his spiritual origin. He is reminded of the soul in his visions, resurfacing memories or relationships with women.

http://www.clashmusic.com/features/american-dreamer-lana-del-rey-interviewed
 
She seems to be using America as a symbolic representation of the Creation landscape. East Coast as the origin, Eden, full of ideals, Brooklyn baby, the Queen of New York City. She wants to experience love and freedom, so she leaves home and moves to West, earth. It's more vivid and exciting down there but she also tastes separation, addictions, madness. Now she understands that the key to happiness is in a balance - in uniting West and East, ego and soul, heaven and earth... Ultraviolence is mainly about being in West though, down on earth and with a fading memory of heaven; Lana alternates between the role of the soul that is abused and repressed by the ego and the role of her ego, which, having repressed her soul, enters into abusive relationships with men.

http://csp.org/experience/james-varieties/james-varieties8.html
 
 
Lizzy is a classic "twice-born" who attains to a new name, Lana, having rejected the name given to her at her first birth -- and such is the root of her melancholy
 

 
Bradley doing the "Hanged Man" pose in "Born to Die"
 
 
The more we learn about "Ultraviolence" the less sense it makes on a literal level; clearly she isn't literally telling Jim that she wants to leave Barrie and run away with him to New York, is she? She is an accomplished symbolist--as she says, her imagination is vast. Do her critics, then, act as her own initiators?
 
http://hermetic.com/legis/new-comment/
 
 
 
"My heart it breaks every step that I take
But I'm hoping at the gates they'll tell me that you're mine" http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/14599/pg14599.html
 

Regarding the cult guru that Lana mentioned in Grazia, this echoes the general concept of her being in a destructive love relationship. The breaking down of people and building them up again obviously evokes the creative alchemical process of Solve et Coagula (analysis and synthesis), but I get the sense that this guru's specialty was mainly to break people down. I am also reminded of the mythical concept of the soul being imprisoned by the lord of the underworld:
 
http://phoenixrise.awardspace.com/cayce.htm
 
Basically I would say that the guru is another representative of the ego. Alternatively he is a male partner of the female ego. The female ego has a suppressed masculine aspect called animus, and as a suppressed aspect it needs to be re-activated in her consciousness (usually through interactions with males) on her way back to wholeness (the soul or Jungian Self).

I guess you could associate Lizzy with her "normal self" or ego, and Lana with her "higher self" or soul. It's the same person of course.
 
She is heavily involved in the creation of her art so she certainly planned lots of details. But I am not sure how much she is guided by her intuition or aesthetic sense and how much she understands the esoteric/abstract aspects intellectually.

Source: 

What do you see when you look at  the mirror? 

A really tired girl! When i am in tour the day start with the sound check at 4 pm and finish at 2 am, after my all dedication to the fans and the people that come in the backstage.

And when aren’t you tired?

I look at the mirror and and i say to myself: “I hope that today everything will be ok”. I hate have problems with my family and with my music, also for the little things like the acoustic during the concerts.

Are the million copies sold of Born To Die the scale of your success?

Personally i use two parameters. First, find a musical community to belong with. Second, know that the community respect me and my job. Unfortunately i have to say that musically i don’t find my “tribe” yet, find somebody to love and share a sense of comradeship. Maybe it’s a romantic inspiration but i think about Bob Dylan when in the 60s he arrived in the Greenwich Village and he found his group of folk music. I’ve tried that too when nine years ago i arrived in Brooklyn but i have to please me of a different version, more simple. I hoped to find people that want to base their life on art. Maybe i found those people in London where i lived for 4 years. And now for 7 months i live in Los Angeles, that’s my escape. I love swim, go to the beach everyday and drive along the coast listening to music.

What do you like to listening to? 

I really like the soundtracks of movies like American Beauty, Il Padrino, Scarface… But the grunge too, Mark Lanegan, Nirvana, and jazz: Chuck Baker, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday and then Bob Dylan and all the musicians of that period.

What is your first musical memory? 

When i was 15 or 16 they sent me to the Kent School for fight my alcohol addiction, it was a private school in Connecticut where i didn’t have a lot of friends but a really young teacher, Gene Campbell, told me about hip hop and the beauty of soundtracks.

That’s not for change argoument but do you ever smoking so much? You just lighted up another cigarette, is not bad for your voice? 

Maybe yes but it’s good for me. It relaxes me but i admit that i smoke,i smoke,i smoke. And i drink a lot of coffee. I have to smoke before,after and during the concerts. And also during the breaks with a cup of coffee.

You say that you’re shy, so how can you stay in front of 5 thousand people during your concerts? 

Get on the stage it’s the part that i like less of my job. I love write and make music but i don’t like all the things that comes after the realization, for promoting the album.

How do you react to the critics?

Not really well. If someone’s write something bad about me and i get to know it i become really disappointed but i try to not let them influence my creativity.

Where and when do you compose music? 

I am a nocturnal animal. I write at night, outside, with a lot of noise in the background that comes from the tv or the radio while i’m smoking and drinking coffee. It’s 4 years that i make music with the same group of people, except for Dan Auerbach that produced with me my last album, Ultraviolence.

Why is Ultraviolence the title of the album?

It’s different from Born To Die,which is about the years of my alcohol addiction, Ultraviolence doesn’t have a specific argoument ,the compactness is in the sounds,in the energy. It’s ambient music, the atmosphere mixes the sound of the California with the Jazz of the 60s.

What’s your favourite song of the album?

The first, Cruel World, which it gives the rythm to the album. The song has 25 seconds of guitar that i define “narco-swing”: it’s like being high. It’s like that for 7 song then the sound became more slow and then it grows up again for the last 20 minutes.

Can you be a down to earth person with this success?

It’s really important to me being a normal person. Anonymity and normality are essentials for my creativity. Fortunately  i grew up with strong roots in my family and when they are so deep it’s easy to harvest the fruits of own work. Also live with my brothers help me to be a down earth person.

Do you live with all your family in Los Angeles?

I’ve always have a central role in my family, also now that  i live with my sister,of 24, and my brother,of 20: Caroline is a yoga teacher, Charlie studies cinema at the UCLA. I’m doing everything that i can do for help them to follow their passions.

They say that Lana is an eccentric person but it seems that you have your head screwed on.

I define myself eccentric psychologically but in the interviews that is often misunderstended. Maybe because my life had a lot of transformations, more transitions. But i’m not provocative, i’m a conservative person, i use words for express myself. Even if i believe in different life-styles and in alternative relationships.

What is your reference in fact of epoch? 

In the middle of 60s and 70s when it grows up a new concept of freedom that it was so new to generate deep passions. A lot mor exciting than the freedoms that we have now.

So thanks for the long conversation, I was biased…

Everyone is before meeting me, I don’t know what to do. I can only try to talk sincerly and let my personality come out. I don’t want to inspire the other people. But i want to be a good person.

What does it mean for you?

A patient person with the people that she loves, generous and that is try to find the serenity.

Do you think that you made it?

I am a calm person but it’s been years that i don’t feel in peace. Maybe it’s because i don’t find my tribe yet.

 

 

(Sorry if there are some mistakes but i’m not english and i tried to translate everything in the best way that i can)
 

Here is a few instances when Lana explained the meaning of the word "ultraviolence":
 
“Ultraviolence is about the male that meets the female. But before the actual sense, I just like the word. It has become the space of a sonorous world that I wanted to make.”
http://lanaboards.com/index.php?/topic/4503-lana-covers-french-magazine-libération/?p=177195
 
"It's a matter of musicality. Ultra is a sweet sound that contrast with the meaning of the next word. I relate to that: my essence is sweet but inside me there's also a violent spirit who came out in the last 4 years."
http://lanaboards.com/index.php?/topic/4785-lana-del-rey-interview-with-d-la-repubblica/?p=188232
 
"The juxtaposition of "ultra", which gives a certain idea of luxury; and "violence" which, to me, reflects the sound of the album really well — it's chaotic but also street music, melodic and sophisticating. Altogether then, [the word] Ultraviolence also means that I've lived between these two states; in my private life, a serene kind of love; in my professional life, a lot of negative press, in my opinion..."
http://lanaboards.com/index.php?/topic/4831-lana-del-rey-in-elle-magazine-france/?p=189525
 
This shows that besides associating the word "ultraviolence" with a relationship between a male and a female, she also associates it with a duality within herself or in her life: sweet serene love on the one hand and a violent, critical spirit on the other.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gemini
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_and_Pollux (emphasis mine)

Back to the East ... we can escape to the Great Sunshine
 
 
 
http://www.swedenborgstudy.com/books/T.Pitcairn_The-Story-of-Creation-in-Genesis/Pitcairn5.htm
 
 
The girl in red = the "outer man"

The girl in white = the "inner man"
 
http://www.fastcocreate.com/3023186/the-director-of-lana-del-reys-tropico-film-helps-us-make-sense-of-it-all
 
 
http://www.thefader.com/2014/06/04/lana-del-rey-cover-interview/
 
 
Thus they denounce her as "fake," but see only their own superficiality and condemn themselves http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fspiegel%2Fkulturspiegel%2Fd-89726953.html
 
 
The external man sees only the external woman ... the soul of the thing-in-itself is not apprehended, since like can only see like ... http://gnosis.org/naghamm/2seth.html
 
 
 
She leaves her lover in the radio mix "for the music"; i.e. she is voluntarily crucifying herself on the stage by turning her life into a work of theurgy; a Phoenix committed to the flames. But it is only the external, bodily Lana (a china doll) that is subjected to the slings and arrows of her crucifiers; her essential Self is beyond these things.

Apparently she also mentions Woodstock here:
 
We could go back to Woodstock
Where they don't know who we are
 
That would make sense in a number of ways. Loss of individual identity in a crowd. Woodstock was a spectacle of hippie ideals - love, peace, spirituality. And the festival was hosted by the town of Bethel, NY - same name as the ancient Israeli town of Bethel, which means "House of God".

Theme:
 
"Got my bad baby by my heavenly side
I know if I go, I'll die happy tonight"
 
Strength and Temperance; the wrath of a wild child quenched by the virgin
 
"Spotlight, bad baby, you've got a flair
For the violentest kind of love anywhere out there

Mon amour, sweet child of mine,
You're divine.
Didn't anyone ever tell you
It's OK to shine?"
 
Without any music videos for the other songs, I can only speculate ... maybe "Ultraviolence" is just about how much she loves Jimmy Gnecco's D. But I also remember this: http://www.idolator.com/7443878/lana-del-rey-new-album-spiritual-stripped-down-dark
 

 
"Spiritual"
 
 
"You have no room for light
Love is lost on you ...
Oh, what can I do?
To turn you on or get through to you"

litewave and deadagainst:
 
Thank you sooo so much for taking your time to post such interesting and detailed interpretations. And please keep posting! Everytime I see this thread having new posts I'm beyond excited.

I guess it has to do with the suppressed soul trying to break through to the modern day ego.

Thus the otherwise inexplicable critical animosity towards her. On an unconscious level they project their own poison and darkness onto one of the few women who is actually free (so she says in "Ride"), as she represents everything that they are not.
 
"Comprende these white lines," or understand YAYO--
 
I wear your sparkle, you call me your mama
Let me put on a show for you, daddy
 
A transition from the particular (the Son and Daughter) to the general (the Father and Mother)--externalized beautiful Form (Maya-shakti the jazz singer as High Priestess) creates play for the Observer (Siva the cult leader as Hierophant)--Video Games--"Don't you know you are the world?"
 
 
The girl in red as Body (Electric), with poison in her tar-black soul ... the cup of Babalon is filled with (Summer) Wine, (Diet Mountain) Dew and bitterness--"just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and as wavering as the ocean" (as she dreams of Zep Tepi in the Urgrund of the Nun)
 
 
Reminded me of when we were kids
 
I'm very familiar with Jung ... his work on alchemy is invaluable here of course. The animus has potent negative aspects as well.
 
I'm not sure if I would classify L as a Thelemite, but there are certain common themes -- http://hermetic.com/crowley/book-4/aba2.html
 

 
Son = animus, Daughter = anima. The Mother is the Lonely Queen, the Self. Father Yod as Jim.
 
 
 
I note the "empty throne" of Binah behind her ...

I think Lana's "poisonous" character in the UV song can refer both to the soul as well as to the manifestation of the soul in a female body (female ego). As a soul she can be perceived by the ego as a threat to his autonomy and control; in a female body she can be a seductress who entrenches her male lover in matter. If interpreted in the latter sense, then Jim can be seen as a male ego (another person) or alternatively as a suppressed masculine aspect of herself, which in Jungian psychology is called animus - I guess that would be what you called her Holy Guardian Angel.
 
To clarify, while I generally associate ego with masculinity (in the sense of separatist/analytical/definite/conscious) and soul with femininity (in the sense of integrative/intuitive/indefinite/unconscious), the male ego is more skewed toward masculinity than the female ego. The masculine aspect suppressed in the female ego is called animus in Jungian psychology and the feminine aspect suppressed in the male ego is called anima. By the soul I mean the integrative aspect of one's identity or what Jungians call the Self, one's identity as a whole.
 

Yes, Brooklyn as the symbolic East after the night-journey in the West of LA (land of fallen angels)
 
To "go back" as a re-entry into Zep Tepi and Paradise
 
Brooklyn Baby, "heaven is my baby"?
 
 
"Ultraviolence" ties into "Yayo" as a description of her esoteric "epiphany" (her words). Deadly Nightshade, Poison Ivy ... these are aspects of the blackness of the Prima Materia. Jim is her Holy Guardian Angel (Forever) as the man of Tiphareth whom she weds when he carries her on his black motorcycle over the Abyss of the dark night.
 
I love you the first time
I love you the last time
Yo soy la princesa, comprende these white lines
Cause I'm your jazz singer
And you're my cult leader
 
=
 
Put me onto your black motorcycle
50’s baby doll dress for my "I do"
It only takes two hours to Nevada
I wear your sparkle, you call me your mama

Let me put on a show for you, daddy ...

Hello, heaven, you are a tunnel-lined
With yellow lights on a dark night
 
The Princesa in Malkuth is "raised" to Binah ("your mama") ... Lana is quite underrated as a metaphysician
 
http://lanaboards.com/index.php?/topic/4738-lana-del-rey-interview-xlsemanal/&do=findComment&comment=186095
 
 
"Shades of Cool" is a deconstruction of the masculine ego, stoic and impenetrable to higher pneumatic influences.
 
And when he calls
He calls for me and not for you
He prays for love, he prays for peace
And maybe someone new
 
Man lives in a state of duality and separation, chasing after a woman in the world of images that he will never truly possess. When he turns away from these things, Lana will be there as the Other Woman (the High Priestess of Soul as a lonely queen), calling him back to her from a space of millions of years. Compare to "She's Not Me."
 
And when her own man comes to call on her
He'll find her waiting like a lonesome queen
Cos when she's by his side
It's such a change from old routine
 
Singing Lou Reed -- "take a walk on the wild side"
 
The explanation of the coniunctio here is a bit mangled but has some good points:
 
 

 
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at. --TS Eliot, "Burnt Norton"
 

Super big thank you to @@ednafrau for translating the interview!
 
 
Source

Lana's father putting West and East Coasts together again...
 

 
From the song Ultraviolence it appears that New York is coming to symbolize an origin of sorts, a place of original harmony (We could go back to New York 'cause loving you is really hard) but also a place where individual identities are not yet fully developed (where they don't know who we are). The short snippet of Brooklyn Baby suggests a happy and carefree time.

^ I agree that the beach scenes are pre-Fall and the car scenes are post-Fall.
 
And I remember when I met him, it was so clear that
he was the only one for me.
We both knew it, right away.
And as the years went on, things got more difficult --
we were faced with more challenges.
I begged him to stay. Try to remember what
we had at the beginning.

Tropico is:

Mary : John
Eve : Adam

"West Coast" is:
 
Lana : Daddy
Lana : Bradley

So it would be better to say that they symbolize her in simultaneous "fallen" (i.e. active in the world) and "unfallen" aspects ("I believe in the person I want to become"), praying the rosary for her broken mind

Hollywood and New York, mister major
And there's me
Little queen of the stage, yeah
He's a god
One the stars, call creator
Hail the king of the industry players
Take off your business suit
Sitting in your lap for my interview

The union of Yahweh and Israel becomes John's love letter to Miss America, or Rob taking care of his little princess (You can be my higher power, baby)
 
Always about her Father's business, Tropico shirts in Paradise

I couldn't help noticing that her father in heaven is now actively engaged in her career.
 

 

 
Some of the stuff he tweets is actually quite interesting.
 

 
Lana was born in New York (East/garden of Eden), now she is in LA (West/garden of evil).