The possibility that Lana might be a year older than what was known widely, for some reason bothers me. The discrepancy is so small that I don’t see any advantage for Lana to unnecessarily lie about it. However as I think about it more, I think I have come up with a possible explanation.
One of the most mysterious parts of Lana’s past to me has been the time she spent in Alabama. She has mentioned this consistently beginning with her early interviews and I think it is true. However nothing else in her background really makes sense to explain a sojourn to Alabama. Except that if viewed in a certain way, it probably does make a lot of sense.
I think when Lana got into high school in Lake Placid she met a guy who was bad news all around (the mysterious K). I think this is the guy who got her into alcohol and probably drugs later. However her drinking freaked out her parents who sent her to boarding school, mainly to get her away from this guy. However I am sure she kept meeting him, despite her parents opposition, e.g. when she came back home for vacations etc. After she finished school, I think her parents really wanted her to break off this relationship, but instead I think she ran away with this guy to Alabama. Instead of going to college she spent a year with this guy down in Alabama, where this guy kept getting into more and more trouble. This scenario would explain many of her lyrics (being on the run, Officer Brown checking on them, kids living the dark side of the American dream etc., there are many, many references in many songs that fit such a scenario), until this guy finally got caught and sent to prison. Not sure he got the death sentence (it’s too melodramatic, but a long prison sentence is as good as dying), and maybe he is still in prison. She said in an interview that he was still around and she was in touch with his mother, with would also be consistent with him being in prison. Anyway, once he got sent away she woke up and came back home, and finally joined Fordham.
However, this scenario means that there is a year missing in her life. So for her friends from high school, her years in Fordham would be a year off. I think she realized in early interviews that this was likely to raise more questions later, instead it was easier to just to pretend that she had come to Fordham straight from Lake Placid. She has always been very reticent to speak about her time before NY probably for this reason. This was probably evident in the Complex interview where the interviewer had picked up some discrepancies about her age. Like many things, once you lie about something, even something very small and inconsequential, it becomes difficult to backtrack later. Therefore, according to the scenario I have laid out, she graduated from high-school in 2003, spent about a year with K in Alabama, and joined Fordham in Fall 2004.
I also think that most of her songs are about K, although she does not name him (she hints at that in her My Space interview, where she says her songs are always about the same guy). I think she developed a crush on Jimmy Gnecco once she met him in NYC clubs, but if anything it was a short fling (even though she wrote a few songs about it). Jimmy however exposed her to being attracted to older men, but I don’t think she had any significant relationship until she met Mike Mizrahi (early 2009). Some of the songs that refer to old guys probably are written to him, and songs like Afraid, Damn You are definitely in reference to her breakup with him. However, I think she still obsesses about K, and that might make her a difficult person to have a long-term relationship with (although I hope I am wrong, and I really wish she finds a great guy to be with).
I spend way too much time thinking about such stuff, gotta stop!