Bartender

[Paris Hilton 9,988]

I see this on Genuis but don't think I've seen it on here but she definitely says: "playing games of levitation" which kinda goes with this witch thing she has going. I think the video clips of her and her friends meditating on the rock will go with this song.

 

@@bunoner OUR MINDS.

[AnarKissed 281]

When L.D.R. sings "the poetry inside of me is warm like a gun" it immediately reminded me of George Harrison's Happiness is a Warm Gun from the Beatles' 1968 White album. But upon further reflection, I am reminded of a passage in one of Richard Huelsenbeck's early essays[1920] in which he expresses his desire to "write literature with a gun in hand."

Also, recently I have been revisiting L.D.R.'s Cinnamon Girl because its one of my favourite tunes from the NFR album; and I noticed something I never had before: you can hear a 1-2 second sound sample, somewhat buried in the mix but still audible, of the sound of machine gun rapid fire. It occurs at 1:24, 2:33, and 2:47. It may be that I am misinterpreting this sound because I have only ever heard a machine gun in movies and such. I am aware of L.D.R.'s use of gun imagery throughout her discography since at least her Lizzy Grant days. These are merely observations. I have no definitive interpretation of L.D.R.'s use of gun symbolism at this time.

 

[sparklrtrailrheaven 9,113]

Bartender always gives me Lizzy Grant vibes, and I wasn't sure why, for a while, but I think I've figured it out -- it's very much written in her Lizzy Grant mode. Excuse the following spill, but I'm an English major and I can't help myself

 

The fact that the Lizzy Grant era fell between the very different writing styles of the May Jailer/Lizzi era and the LDR era makes it an odd mix of both -- it's partially slice-of-life, confessional lyrics, akin to a track like Blizzard, but it's also got a heightened, unreal edge, which Lana would ~fully~ embrace by the time Born to Die rolled around, where her lyrics became less about telling straightforward stories and more about loftier sets of ideas, imagery, and emotion.

 

For example, take the trio of Drive By, Kill Kill, and Dark Paradise, all connected by the theme of the "dying man."

 

Drive By is Lizzi telling us a story, with few frills and few digressions, but plenty of details -- K is her friend, K killed someone, and K is serving time. It's sung basically as it would be told, save for her questions posed to K in the choruses, and the rhymes between lines -- and that's part of the charm of the May Jailer recordings; for the most part, they're simple and unadorned and seemingly pretty apt documents of what Lizzi Grant was feeling and thinking in 2005. 

 

Skip ahead to Dark Paradise, and you see what's almost a full 180: the story is mostly to be inferred -- all the listener knows (context about Lana's larger body of lyrics and her life put aside) is that Lana's lover is ostensibly dead, and she can't deal with his absence. It's not not a story, but it's far from the detailed account given in Drive By, spelled out down to the number of years K is going to serve. Another striking contrast is that Dark Paradise brims with artistic lyrical devices, as opposed to the plain quality of Drive By -- so much so that it reads as pretty melodramatic, what with all the grandiose death metaphors and ghostly images.

 

Then, you look at Kill Kill, written right in the middle of the two other tracks. There's still a defined sense of storytelling and a slice-of-life, confessional quality held over from the May Jailer era: Lizzy is "in love with a dying man," he "bounds up the stairs" while she's "in the shower," she asks her lover to "tell [her] about Ray and his girl," because "Ray is going to meet [him]." There's nothing inherently artistic about these lyrics; they could just as easily come from a conversation as they could from a song, just like in Drive By. However, Lizzy uses this grounded base to lay her more oblique and artful lyrics on, with lines like "stars fade from your eyes" or the cryptic bridge of "One, two/Make it fun/Don't trust anyone." There's definitely a story here -- the heroine is leaving her dying beau -- as there was in the May Jailer era, but it's as if we've only been privy to snippets of the story: who is Ray, and why is the dying man meeting him? Why is Lizzy leaving her lover? How does the bridge relate -- who mistrusts who, and who's playing the situation like a game?

 

Therefore, a song like Kill Kill -- and much else of the Lizzy Grant canon -- succeeds because of this blend: the listener is given pieces of a story, modified by occasional cryptic phrases and florid lines, that creates lyrics that feel real, but also decidedly off-kilter and unreal. I think the best comparison really is David Lynch, who presents realities that are recognizable, but just strange and off-beat enough that an unsettling, unusual atmosphere is created. 

 

So, for a long time, I think Lana had mostly moved out of this mode of writing -- Born to Die through Lust for Life feel to me like they're in the same vein, with the balance moving more towards the emotion and conceptuality present in her lyrics, with little definite story -- hence the rise of Lanalysis that sought to attach more definite stories to her songs by making connections to her personal life. 

 

However, NFR!, I think, represents something of a return to form -- it's not identical to the Lizzy Grant style of writing, because the songs certainly feel somewhat more grounded in reality than her LG works, but it's much closer to that style than anything she's released in a very long time. It sees her acting as a storyteller again, first and foremost, and using those stories as a base for the larger emotions and ideas she wants to express, rather than flipping that around and using vague stories to connect her emotions. (Of course, this isn't to say that that means of writing isn't great -- it's responsible for Lana's golden age, and without it, we wouldn't have the same quintessential LDR persona and era.) 

 

This is all lead-up to say that I think Bartender is a track that exemplifies this matured form of the Lizzy Grant writing style: the story is present, based in reality, and has a confessional air, with Lana intimating her quests to meet her lover and avoid the paparazzi, along with day-in-the-life descriptions of her exploits with her girlfriends. However, as she did then, she modifies this story with an edge of surreality and drama: the "ladies of the canyon" are "dressed in black" or "dressed in white" and play "games of levitation," her conquests to avoid being photographed are framed as "the little game that we play," and she, somewhat sinisterly, compares the poetry she thinks up to a warm gun, resting inside her. It's all based in her real life, but is told with just enough unreality to be incredibly intriguing.

 

In essence, she's once again balanced her songwriting bents: the straight storytelling she began with, and the grand melodrama she became famous with -- and what she's doing now is not at all unlike the transition period that was the Lizzy Grant era. 

 

And, did I mention how much I love that? 

[YourGirl666 13,254]

One of my favorite Lizzy Grant songs ever 

[bambi eyes 1,809]

Bar-t-t-tender

the two extra T’s just add so much flavor riiiiight?

[bluechemtrails 27,316]

Bartender always sounds so familiar and reminds me of something, maybe a song I heard in the 90s, but I never figured out which one it was. 

[fl0r1dakil0s 21,529]

why doesn't anybody talk about how the second verse of this song is just about women getting high in a garden and calling it meditating 😭

 

it's giving raise me up when she says "something" is lifting her feet off the ground like cmn lizzy name the drug the people need to know what had u levitating 

[Louise 1,473]

On 4/15/2023 at 2:17 AM, honey dew said:

 

Oh you sound just like me  I’ve never heard of Ann Wilson but that was GORGEOUS!

 

Imagine if Lana was still compressing like the other pop girlies - we would have never gotten that barely-audible and absolutely brilliant whispered “Texas” in Paris, Texas

I took your quote to Bartender lyrics, because Lana references Heart with its hit, Love Alive

'Cause they don't know yet what car I drive
I'm just tryna keep my love alive

Instead of post a fan cam of Love Alive - they are fewer and far between before the age of the smartphone! here is a '70's live tv broadcast of Soul of the Sea:

Today you turned around to my heart's call
This tiny life ain't been strangled after all
Time, time, time, time
Never ask what's become of us
Just dedicate your sorrow
Here and now
To the soul of the sea
And me . . .
- https://genius.com/Heart-soul-of-the-sea-lyrics

Being an "Ann" enthusiast, you see why I am excited about Lana, and feel Ann passed the torch to her!

Lana is student of the '70's - her Dad's era, and I'm his age . . .

Here are two side by sides for a funny tweet I created a couple years ago, saying Ann passes the torch to Lana - neither want to be the the tree which falls silently in the woods. There is the debate: if a tree falls in the woods, and noone hears it, did it make noise?

 

[honey dew 11,799]

8 hours ago, Louise said:

I took your quote to Bartender lyrics, because Lana references Heart with its hit, Love Alive

'Cause they don't know yet what car I drive
I'm just tryna keep my love alive

Instead of post a fan cam of Love Alive - they are fewer and far between before the age of the smartphone! here is a '70's live tv broadcast of Soul of the Sea:

Today you turned around to my heart's call
This tiny life ain't been strangled after all
Time, time, time, time
Never ask what's become of us
Just dedicate your sorrow
Here and now
To the soul of the sea
And me . . .
- https://genius.com/Heart-soul-of-the-sea-lyrics

Being an "Ann" enthusiast, you see why I am excited about Lana, and feel Ann passed the torch to her!

Lana is student of the '70's - her Dad's era, and I'm his age . . .

Here are two side by sides for a funny tweet I created a couple years ago, saying Ann passes the torch to Lana - neither want to be the the tree which falls silently in the woods. There is the debate: if a tree falls in the woods, and noone hears it, did it make noise?

 

 

I think Lana is the torchbearer of the last vestiges of that truly great songwriting and storytelling of the 70s, and I think she knows it. Beyond the aesthetics, which is what she has always been known for and reduced down to, she really has a spiritual connection to that collective consciousness, to other 'souls of the sea’, to her family and to God. I think from the very beginning to now she has been tapping into that but is just more aware of, and driven by, the connectedness these days. She will never be the tree that falls with nobody there to hear it because to do so would be to remove herself from those connections, and to extinguish the torch she has been passed. She continues to defy the corporate trends in pursuit of this dream and duty, which is what makes her my number 1 role model 

[Louise 1,473]

10 hours ago, honey dew said:

She will never be the tree that falls with nobody there to hear it because to do so would be to remove herself from those connections, and to extinguish the torch she has been passed. She continues to defy the corporate trends in pursuit of this dream and duty, which is what makes her my number 1 role model 

That is lovely - what you wrote! Made my eyes water, I cried a little. Plus, you said it in a nutshell. If Lana's songs didn't speak to people, she wouldn't give hope to fans around the world. Somewhere I read Ocean Blvd is making a splash as far as worldwide album sales.

[blackenedrussianpoetry 2,523]

Bartender x Happiness is a butterfly x Quiet Waiter Blue Forever (poem) are sisters

[Mash Tragic 3,944]

 Quickly creeping out of the shadows: I just read a quote by Sartre that says "Les mots sont des pistolets chargés" (Words are like loaded guns/pistols) and it immediately made me think of the line "The poetry inside of me is warm like a gun."

 

Do you think the similar imagery is a coincidence or that Lana could have read Sartre?  Given her love for philosophy, I wouldn't be surprised but maybe it's a stretch. Idk. Maybe it comes from elsewhere, the imagery might not be super original. (Edit: just saw the post above about Happiness is a Warm Gun, I guess the imagery really isn't super original lmao). 

 

I don't like Sartre anyway so it would suit me if it's a coincidence.  It's just that I like to know what Lana reads/where she draws her inspiration from and I found the parallel interesting. 

[Unidentified Major Tom 2,137]

On 4/10/2024 at 5:21 PM, Mash Tragic said:

 Quickly creeping out of the shadows: I just read a quote by Sartre that says "Les mots sont des pistolets chargés" (Words are like loaded guns/pistols) and it immediately made me think of the line "The poetry inside of me is warm like a gun."

 

Do you think the similar imagery is a coincidence or that Lana could have read Sartre?  Given her love for philosophy, I wouldn't be surprised but maybe it's a stretch. Idk. Maybe it comes from elsewhere, the imagery might not be super original. (Edit: just saw the post above about Happiness is a Warm Gun, I guess the imagery really isn't super original lmao). 

 

I don't like Sartre anyway so it would suit me if it's a coincidence.  It's just that I like to know what Lana reads/where she draws her inspiration from and I found the parallel interesting. 

That's interesting, nice catch !

My theory on this is that there are multiple parallels between the beat generation and existentialism, two close schools of thought from the same era, with similar ideas. I wouldn't be surprised if Sartre, Ginsberg or Kerouac met or read each other's essays/books.

This may be a stretch, but she often spoke about Beat poetry, so I assume those words came from there.