My Ocean Boulevard Redemption / Purgatory Theory: Ocean Boulevard is a su*cide note or story/journey of su*cide and redemption from Lana Del Rey (or a character she’s embodying and adapting to her story)
The Grants: I don’t remember who wrote this, but someone in this thread earlier discussed how the “so you say there’s a chance for us?” could refer to Lana reflecting on how there may still be a chance for her family line to pass on to heaven and break karmic curses - hence the “I’m doing the hard stuff, doing my time, doing it for us, for the family line” - perhaps this song is about the character/Lana reflecting on the work she’s done to end karmic curses before she leaves the world - she’s reflecting on what memories she will take when she leaves
Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard: “I can’t help but feel someone like my body marred my soul” - an ancestor (like her body) marred or cursed her soul. She’s now doomed to pass on, she feels, like those who have recently passed in her family. “When’s it gonna be my turn?” - used to be a line that I thought meant, when will it be her turn to find happiness / fame / love, etc. but perhaps she’s wondering when this curse will reach her and end her. It could also mean she knows, tongue-in-cheek, she’ll never find that love or happiness she wants due to the karmic past. As such, she decides to go before it reaches her - she indulges: “fuck me to death, love me until I love myself” - she has committed to death and reminds everyone not to forget her. - the Tunnel can be a metaphor of su*cide too, in that, what it was meant for / it’s purpose has effectively killed it - the passage of time and the constant use of the tunnel’s transport (it’s purpose) has led to its end / closure. The Tunnel can also be a metaphor for a coffin (under Ocean Boulevard , under the ground)
Sweet: “you can find me where no one will be” - the character is telling us where she will go to die. Where no one alive will be, in the tunnel, in the woods, in the valley, in the north country, barefeet and free; “do you contemplate where we came from?” - have you thought like me where we go, what created us? “Do you want children, do you want to marry me?” - she asks because these things won’t happen - she feels this karmic curse won’t allow her to find those things. “If I’m not there, come to my house” - when she’s gone, she’ll go back home (in Paris Texas, later in this theory, Lana is in purgatory and returns home)
A&W: Lana thinks of her past one last time before passing, discusses what may have led her to this point - “do you think I give a damn what I do after years of just hearing them talking?” - she indulges one last time in sex.
Judah Smith: self-explanatory: she turns to God. She reflects on lust and idolatry.
Candy Necklaces: she turns to her doomed relationship, and reflects on its self-destructive nature. She indulges one last time in drugs. “Sitting on the sofa, feelin’ super su*cidal” - in this theory, the repetition of “Candy Necklaces” at the end of the song is when she kills herself and slowly fades.
Jon Batiste: another illusion to su*cide: “I’m feelin’ early”, her and Jon are dancing in purgatory, the interlude feels like a fever dream because it is, it’s the transport between life and death, she’s passing through the tunnel.
Kintsugi: (please don’t get offended by this one, I’m trying my best to be extremely sensitive in explaining this - I understand that this is an emotional song about the death of Lana’s loved ones and her grief, but I think there’s a tie to this story) - “there’s a certain point that the body can’t come back from” - the character/Lana’s lover is now reflecting on her death and passing and expresses their grief. “Daddy, I miss them, I’m in the mountains” - she is reflecting on how much she misses everyone she loves from purgatory, she has turned to the mountains (referring back to the nature in Sweet, expressing where she will be when she’s passed)
Fingertips: Lana looks back on her life whilst in purgatory, she is lost and trying to determine how to be saved to reach heaven. “It wasn’t my idea the cocktail of things that twist neurons inside, but without them I’d die. They say there’s irony in the music, it’s a tragedy” - death by drugs/pill. The irony is that she’s dead. “If I take my life, find your astral body, put it into my arms” - another reference to su*cide
Paris, Texas: Lana is travelling through purgatory - she has left the mountains and is visiting various places to find her closure / escape purgatory - making amends, saying goodbyes. She visits Paris with a suitcase and has to leave because that’s not her place to rest. “When you know, you know. It’s time to go”. She now visits Spain, but only has a notebook - her worldly possessions are leaving her, her spirit is beginning to make peace with leaving purgatory. She visits friends in Alabama to say goodbye. “It’s time to leave, like the summer breeze” - her spirit is giving signs that she’s there through nature. “When every star is bright, brighter than you are, it’s time to go” - the stars (passed ones) who shine brighter are the ones who have found their closure in Paris, Spain, Alabama, etc. She finally realizes she needs to go home. She visits and her lover has moved on, she calls to no one. Now that he has fully grieved and mourned her loss, it’s another sign that her time on earth in purgatory is ending and she must call to God to move on. “You’re home, when you’re alone” - making peace with oneness, solitude, letting go of people in the real world. “When you’re right, you’re right, even when you’re wrong” - Lana reflects on her life and how things that felt right at the time, might have been wrong. Also, every place she visited that may have felt “right”, was wrong and it wasn’t meant for her to rest.
Grandfather: In this monologue, the climax, Lana confesses to God her truth - she wasn’t manufactured, she’s good in spirit, warm-bodied, a deity wrapped in white. Regrettably, a white woman. During this plea, she calls to God to please send her three butterflies to let her know he’s there as she’s travelled enough and needs to know he’s listening. She’s making peace with her “sins” and what people shamed her for and confesses her good intentions and pleads to God to feel it in bones, hear it in her poetry, her music, etc. At the end, the butterflies appear and Lana ascends to heaven.
Let The Light In: “Look at us, you and me, back at it again” - Lana is indulging in utopia, embracing her family, essentially this is the Heaven track.
Margaret: the final part of the story, Lana looks down to Jack and Margaret as an angel / spirit and is able to now pass her truth and writing on to others (“This is a simple song, gonna write it for a friend”) . The end of the song also feels like the perfect closer / credit roll to the story.
BONUS: In Fishtail, Lana reflects on how her lover was distant in her life - he’d never even come to braid her hair! He was absent. “Palm trees in black and white” - this world of the past is faded, it’s a memory. He wanted her sadder. In Peppers, Lana reflects on the true feelings she felt of being in LOVE. “Hands on your knees, I’m Angelina Jolie” - she tells the world to bow, get on their knees and put their hands on her knees, grieve and mourn at she grave because she was a cultural icon like Angelina Jolie. Maybe this refers to her having found true love in Heaven, which fits as Peppers came before (past love). In Taco Truck, Lana meets her boyfriend at the taco truck, has transcended as Lanita and is now telling the fucking press to spin her death however they may, print it however they want in the cover story, fuck you from the afterlife, I know you always hated me. (Also reflects on how stars are treated post-humously).
We return to Venice Bitch, a simpler time, a peaceful and serene moment in Lana’s life, but this time it’s a fucking party because she’s living it up in Lake Placid. The transition between Taco Truck and VB might indicate all of this was a dream, hence the woman explaining she had a nap and had this dream… If this were all framed to be a true story about Lana’s su*cidal ideation, this could be her letting us know she’s better now - “get high, drop acid, never die, not tonight”, she’s realized who she is and chooses to live on. If we were her’s, we’d be jealous of her love. Signin’ off, bang bang kiss kiss <3
The [mother] censor in Fingertips has an effect like she's going underwater and then coming out. It ties with her line about suicide attempt at the water, and also her line about Aphrodite because Aphrodite was born from the sea.
Basically, Lana isn’t glamorizing Black Dahlia’s murder. She’s paying homage to her because they started out the same. Black Dahlia had dreams of becoming an actress while Lana had dreams of becoming a singer. Early in their career, they both didn’t have a stable home. Rather than Black Dahlia being known as the girl who was gruesomely murdered, Lana wants to show that she had this dream every since she was little of becoming a Hollywood star. Her comment also implies that what happened to Black Dahlia could’ve happened to her and other women as well, but it didn’t. Since it didn’t happen, she’s going to continue living out her dreams and creating her legacy.
I think in Lana's comment she's saying that she (or any woman really) could have ended up just like the Black Dahlia
Elizabeth Short (the Black Dahlia) moved to Hollywood and was an aspiring actress, so I think Lana feels she relates to her in some ways. In fact, some of the rumors about Elizabeth Short said she was basically living on peoples couches, with no real home (much like Lana once did when she was a struggling musician)
There's a lot of parallels between them like that, the most obvious one being that both their names are Elizabeth lol
Butterfly Knife liked a post in a topic by Blue Ribbon in Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd - Post-Release Discussion Thread + Poll