Have you ever felt this feeling of being in love, that takes your guts, makes you overturn and leaves you feeling disoriented and distraught, a bit lost, not knowing very well where to place what holds you, what wraps you, makes you drunk and petrifies you at the same time?
A feeling that often appears when you know you're in love and that you see, in the same time, the object of this love escape, invariably. This is exactly what haunts every song that Lana Del Rey serenely chimes out since several years already, since this moment where her first hits, Video Games or Blue Jeans, seized a public not to let it go, taking it at the heart of romances composed by this young lady of 30yo on a makeshift computer, but nourished by a writing that ceaselessly mixes fiction, reality and autobiography, without ever unveiling itself completely.
Since Video Games, all of Lana's music, every of her lyrics and the slightest notes that composes her songs speak of and evokes only this: love stories seized in singular moments - a dreamy beginning, a raging end. But never at the middle of a story, when tensions (sexual, romantic, intellectual) are soothed or on their way to disappear. In her songs, her voice plays on this register, always stays at the summit of peace but oscillate between the absolute joy of knowing itself of being in a state of being in love and the absolute depression of seeing itself being confronted to the very impossibility of the bond she sings. Lana's voice flirts always with the mystery and what is unexplained - in her or in us?
By mid-summer, she released, in introduction to her new record, a handful of tracks that answers each other, playing on these very feelings. The first, Honeymoon, seems to get an embryo of a story, a bond still full of illusions, romances, desires and blindness - "We make the rules", she sings, adressing herself to another, a lover, like an echo to a breviary very romantic. The world is ours, she says. Nevertheless, the song released a few weeks later, High By The Beach, says the exact contrary. She explores the end of a relation, the disparition of love and the loneliness that follows. The desire of loneliness stronger than everything, at the moment of being done with the other. Destroy, she says. In a few words, she declines the contempt that seized the one, him, her, the doesn't love anymore. Has she seen Godard? Was she thinking of Bardot in Le Mépris? With Lana, nothing surprises, especially not european references, the bonds weaved subrepticely with other arts than music, starting with images, the cinema.
Finally, the third track unveiled at the end of the summer, her favourite it seems, joins like an intimate post-scriptum, giving a new perspective to the story sketched in the two previous tracks. At the heart of this song, Terrence Loves You, she throws this sentence, so cliché elsewhere but so poignant in her mouth: "I lost myself when I lost you". And, as to climb back to something, she also things, in the same breath, this other sentence, "Hollywood legends will never grow old", that says a lot on what obsessed her: the legends, the glamour, the mythical Los Angeles of the 50'. What if Lan, in 2015, was an echo of what Billy Wilder filmed in Sunset Boulevard? The very representation of what it means to be an idol, in her monolithic beauty, her errances, her contradictions and her inherent fragility. What if Lana was the last of these women that made Hollywood? What if Lana, more than a singer, was an actress, the last of mythical Hollywood actresses?
Interview translation by @ no credits to me
In what state of mind did you record this new album? I started to record it when I was mixing Ultraviolence. The mixing of this album took time, and it was good to start at that moment a new creative process. My mood as really good in the beginning, then it became introverted when I asked myself how to finish this record.
You wanted a record linked to jazz. Did you really conceive it in this way? I think so. In a certain way, the tracks Honeymoon, Terrence Loves You, God Knows I Tried and the cover of Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood have a dark blue ( ) colouration and I tried to increase the tempo of the album with the middle tracks, like Freak and Art Deco.
Honeymoon is one of your strongest songs… It’s one of the first tracks that I wrote for the record and that overwhelmed me right away. The melody and the lyrics of the chorus kept coming back in my head day after day, but I postponed the moment when I would work on the rest, the harmonics… I ended up recording at the studio and it touched my most sensible point right away. I was happy to follow what I felt even if the melody sounded obscure and a bit from the 30s.
Your songs often mention places, avenues. What’s the importance of LA in your writing? The places that I cite in this new songs are very important to me. Some times I’d like to be less precise, more universal, but I’m really loyal to myself by evoking certain avenues, streets or names of people. Wilshire Boulevard in particular is very dear to me because I often stop there to write. Maybe because it’s one of the largest streets in LA, or maybe because my way is socializing is by driving along a congested boulevard and observing people.
Are High By The Beach and Honeymoon related? Now that you mention it, Honeymoon was a more personal song in which I thought about my past, I wanted to share some of my favorite places and all of my moments of peace with someone. HBTB is the last song I wrote for the album and tells, deep down, the solitude. I didn’t think that there would be a link between these two tracks but there is one throughout the record, the same melodic atmosphere, specially in the more jazzy tracks.
The literary references are important to you. What writers or artists mattered recently? Ginsberg inspires me just as much as before, with his free way of writing his thoughts. I love Emily Dickison, Miles Davis, The Moody Blues, Leonard Cohen, most of all, Bob Dylan. Federico Fellini and Picasso too.
TLY and HM are part of your most personal songs. Did you want to dive into deeper feelings? Find other perspectives for your music? Not really. I rather had the impression that after three records, I had to concentrate on something more surreal, and not be too much intellectual. That being said, the track God Knows I Tried evoke the confusion I felt and TLY touches me more closely. On this record, I think that I was the closest to my emotions.
TLY seems to evoke an evasive memory. I love the idea of a memory that slowly disappears. It’s really romantic.
You covered Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood: how does this song fit along with your other covers? I choose covers that tell either stories parallel to mine, or feelings that I would’ve found hard to express with my own words. Depending on the period of my life, I cover songs that allow me to tell things to other people, or even words that I wanted to hear myself saying to fix some of my problems.
The video for HBTB gives the impression that you are trying to protect yourself of the outside world. Is it the case? Yes.
What impression do you have about the track you did with The Weekend that just came out? A good impression. We had wanted to do something together for a long time and it’s a coincidence that both of our records are being released at the same time. He’s someone very talented.
One last question: how do you wear your nails this days? At this moment my nails are neither too short nor too long, very clean and always with a light rose or beige colour.
Would she really care that much though? Knowing it's Lana? I wish she didn't do it but I doubt she did, I think that may they not be in the video it wouldn't be for these reasons.
Oh ok! I meant, the picture itself was taken during the production so it's tecnically a behind the scenes, but it's indeed just inspirational pictures like brain storming I believe, like they used them to make the MTWBT sign etc
Bludgeon my actual life, your talent is surreal. I have absolutely sub-zero talent in this kind of style, you're insane, I'm snatched. Lana loves beauty she will definitely dig this! Out of curiosity (as I'm an art student myself), may I ask what medium you use and how big it is?
!!! Aaaaaaa thank you so much! You are soooo kind and wonderful!! (Plus if I'm not mistaken I've reblogged a couple of cocorosie things from you before-- You're extra rad for liking cocorosie!!!)
It's all Prismacolor colored pencil except for the stars, which I dotted on with a white paint pen and a toothpick!
EDIT: I forgot to mention that it takes up most of a 9 x 12 inch sketchbook page!
Bludgeon my actual life, your talent is surreal. I have absolutely sub-zero talent in this kind of style, you're insane, I'm snatched. Lana loves beauty she will definitely dig this! Out of curiosity (as I'm an art student myself), may I ask what medium you use and how big it is?
Tried to do YGLM because it's my penultimate fav song ever and it's ugly, even if I changed a tiny bit so it doesn't look literal
Jerry dit que quand
Je pense que j'ai une bonne idée,
Que je doive faire l'opposé
De ce que c'est que je ressens.
C'est parce que j'ai un mauvais esprit,
Et j'ai de l'or dans mes veines
Mais il dit que j'ai le coeur le plus pur
Qu'il n'ai jamais vu
Pourquoi Dieu me donnerait un cerveau
Il ne veut pas me laisser l'utiliser
Pourquoi Dieu me donnerait un plan
S'il ne m'aide pas à le réaliser
Tu va m'aimer
Je vais te faire m'aimer
Tu va m'aimer
Je vais te faire m'aimer
Eh bien, je peux dire que tu es du type
A ne jamais avoir confiance en les reines de beauté
Mais on a jamais voté pour moi Au lycée, n'ai jamais signifié
Quoi que ce soit à qui que ce soit
Ne me suis jamais jamais donnée à personne Mais même quand je suis drôle Tu penses que je joue un rôle donc je dis
Pourquoi Dieu me donnerait un cerveau
Il ne veut pas me laisser l'utiliser
Pourquoi Dieu me donnerait un plan
Il ne m'aide jamais à le réaliser
Tu va m'aimer
Je vais te faire m'aimer
Tu va m'aimer
Je vais te faire m'aimer
Tu dis que tu ne veux pas être hypnotisé
Mais bébé moi, je ne veux pas t'hypnotiser
Il n'y rien de toi que je veuille prendre
Je veux juste être comme toi
Peut-être t'aimer juste un petit peu
S'il te plaît, oh oh oh
Jim je vais te dédicacer cet album tout entier Tu m'as dis d'arriver à mes fins C'est exactement ce que je vais faire
Je vais saisir ma chance Saisir ma chance là tout de suite avec cette chanson Mais c'est plus fort que moi
Je ne peux pas aller bien longtemps
Tu le sais
Pourquoi Dieu me donnerait un cerveau
Il ne veut pas me laisser l'utiliser
Pourquoi Dieu me donnerait un plan
S'il ne m'aide pas à le réaliser
Tu va m'aimer
Je vais te faire m'aimer
Tu va m'aimer
Je vais te faire m'aimer
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