Violets for Roses

[Elle 113,571]

There's somethin’ in the air

The girls are runnin' 'round in summer dresses

With their masks off and it makes me so happy

Larchmont Village smells like lilies of the valley

& the bookstore doors are opening

& it's finally happening

 

Ever since I fell out of love with you, I fell back in love with me

& boy, does it feel sweet

Like a summer breeze

Ever since I fell out of love with you, I fell back in love with the city

Like the Paramount sign sparkling

Sparkling just for me

 

You made me trade my violets for roses

You tried to trade in my new truck for Rollses

Don't forget all of these things that you love are the same things I hate

The simple life, I chose this

You made me trade my violets for roses

You tried to take all the pink off my toes, and

God knows the only mistake that a man can make

Is tryna make a woman change

& trade her violets for roses

 

Ahh, aha

Trade her violets for roses

Ahh, aha

 

There's something in the air

I hope it doesn't change, that it's for real

The beginning of something big happening

& by them other rallies in the streets have ceased & still

The shadows haunt the avenue

The silence is deafening

 

Ever since I fell out of love with you, I fell back in love with the streets

& God, does it feel sweet

Like a summer breeze

Ever since I fell out of love with you, I breakdance to the backbeat

& God, does it sound sweet

Like it's playing just for me

 

You made me trade my violets for roses

You tried to trade in my new truck for Rollses

Don't forget all of these things that you love are the same things I hate

The simple life, I chose this

You made me trade my violets for roses

You tried to take all the pink off my toes, and

God knows the only mistake that a man can make

Is tryna make a woman change and trade her violets for roses

 

Ahh, aha

Trade her violets for roses

Ahh, aha

Trade her violets for roses

Ahh, aha

 

There's somethin’ in the air

The girls are runnin' 'round in summer dresses

With their masks off and it makes me so happy

[War In My Mind 2,995]

This is slowly becoming a favorite track of mine so I wanted to a close reading of the lyrics. Hopefully, you enjoy and remember this is my interpretation of the song.

 

The first line of the song echoes her song “Change” where she begins the song with “There’s something in the wind, I can feel it blowin’ in”, whereas in “Change” the song is eerie and is anticipating change, be it good or bad, in “Violets for Roses” the song immediately indicates that the/a change has already occurred, and we see it in the next two lines. Masks off and running happy, references the freedom (from COVID also making this song hyper-contemporary), but perhaps this is not necessarily true in the real world, since COVID is still running wild, it again echoes the album’s tone of the freedom and joy found in family.

 

The second “stanza” or pre-chorus makes explicit another change that has occurred—a breakup. However, unlike most break-up songs, this is neither an angry declaration nor a sad one, rather a happy one. The freedom that comes with breaking-up with someone because you can reallocate the love back to yourself. Perhaps from a relationship so toxic that you forget who you are and what you like, highlighted by the first line, “ever since I fell out of love with you, I fell back in love with me.”

 

In the chorus, there is the infamous line, “you made me trade my violets for roses,” a line perhaps not popular with the community but one that is nonetheless metaphorically symbolic. “Roses” have been known in poetry to represent love since medieval prose poetry. Similarly, violets are no stranger to Lana Del Rey’s own poetry (see: Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass). While in the titular poem, Violet is a child of seven-years old, it could be argued that Violet is a personification of her own desires. The poem’s first stanza is a contemplation of everything she wants to do which is clashed with the presence of Violet in the second stanza:

and saw Violet
bent backwards over the grass
7 years old with dandelions grasped
tightly in her hands
arched like a bridge in a fallen handstand
grinning wildly like a madman
with the exuberance that only doing nothing can bring
waiting for the fireworks to begin

Her seeing Violet, carelessly enjoying her life, leads the poetess to let her own worries go:

and in that moment
i decided to do nothing about everything

forever.

Other than the clear intertextuality with her own oeuvre, Violets are also known to be compared to roses in the well-known poem:

Roses are red, violets are blue

Sugar is sweet, and so are you.

This poem, like Del Rey’s song, puts “violets” and “roses” in immediate contrast. The switching of placement in the chanteuse’s song, structurally emphasizes her identification with “violets” or her own desires, her own identity, with “roses” which represent love. Thus, “you made me trade my violets for roses,” is a confession, “you made me trade myself, my values, my joy for love.” A sentiment that harkens back to Del Rey’s third full-length album Honeymoon and the song “Terrance Loves You” where she confesses this pattern, “I lost myself, when I lost you”.

 

The rest of the chorus’ lyrics echo these sentiments. About a lover who made her sacrifice each aspect of her individuality (be it cars, toenail polish) in negotiation for love. The chorus ends with a declaration that any love that forces a woman to do this, is a doomed one.

 

The stanza that serves as the songs bridge repeats some of the lyrics from the first stanza of the song, but with this time a declaration of hope that this change is permanent. At first, the change being understood as this love for herself and the joy she finds in the everyday. While once again echoing perhaps the civil unrest that she first mentions in “Text Book” the opening track of Blue Banisters. Thus, with these final lines of this verse, the change she is mentioning is both the love she has for herself, but the change in society, macro and micro changes.

 

The final pre-chorus sees the singer re-embracing things that she used to love before she fell in love, “I fell back in love with the streets” and “I breakdance to the beat” and “God, does it sound sweet, like it’s playing just for me”. All sentiments reinforced by the final chorus and the outro which reaffirm the toxicity that love can have and that it is important to stay yourself and not to sacrifice what you love about yourself in order to be loved, in doing so you’ll find that that person forcing those sacrifices does not love you but loves controlling you. In the final lines of the outro, Lana is watching the girls again but seeing in them her own mask is now off, that toxic love, and it makes [her] so happy.

[AngelHeadedHipster 2,620]

 

This song reminds me of Lana and now Lana has a similar titled song so I just thought of sharing this tune here. Enjoy

 

https://genius.com/Hayley-williams-roses-lotus-violet-iris-lyrics

 

Roses, roses, roses, roses, roses
(Roses, roses, roses, roses, roses)
Show no concern for colors of a violet
Lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus
(Lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus)
Hopes it won't spark envy in your irises

Always felt Hayley was channeling Lana in this song thematically. 

 

 

 

[TheCultureIsLit 542]

Somewhere I saw the lyrics written as "trade in my new truck for Rollses" and I feel like this might be the correct lyric, since it makes sense in the context of trading one simple vehicle for a fancier car with a prestigious reputation (a Rolls-Royce).

[longtimeman 7,916]

3 minutes ago, TheCultureIsLit said:

Somewhere I saw the lyrics written as "trade in my new truck for Rollses" and I feel like this might be the correct lyric, since it makes sense in the context of trading one simple vehicle for a fancier car with a prestigious reputation (a Rolls-Royce).

SInce I read that, it definitely sounds like that to me, and at least it sounds more like 'Rollses' than 'Horses'. Let's not forget, though, that this is the same woman who sang that her friend should 'take the whale' in HBTB

[War In My Mind 2,995]

15 minutes ago, TheCultureIsLit said:

Somewhere I saw the lyrics written as "trade in my new truck for Rollses" and I feel like this might be the correct lyric, since it makes sense in the context of trading one simple vehicle for a fancier car with a prestigious reputation (a Rolls-Royce).

oh man I didnt even look at the lyrics elle posted. I hear rolls' every time. Didnt even think someone might hear horses.

[godsmonster 13,770]

Bartender, Happiness is a butterfly, and Violets for Roses are all sisters

they all talk about the same truck she bought in Bartender

[Let the Light In 15,135]

I know some people has an issue with the mask lyrics in Violet for Roses but apart from what she meant literally is not problematic at all as she means she is relieved that she is seeing signs that pandemic is getting over; lyrics have double entendre where there is more timeless reference to the concept of the song as she chooses what she wants, and not what the other person dictates to her:

 

The girls are running 'round in summer dresses with their masks off = The girls are being free and being themselves

[Ana26 1]

Thanks for your interpretation. I am new to Lana's work and would not have read the intertextuality. It occurred to me that violet is the color of feminst movement, at least where I live.I wonder if that is international. 

[COCC 29,539]

You made me trade my violets for roses
You tried to trade in my new truck for horses
Don't forget all of these things that you love are the same things I hate

I chose this

[Deadly Nightshade 11,961]

Ever since I fell out of love with you, I fell back in love with the city

Like the Paramount sign sparkling

Sparkling just for me

 

I really love this part 

[Jukebox Sweetheart 5,477]

I heard someone say that this song is like white mustang, where violets are "violence"(Could be a callback to ultraviolence), so he made her trade her "violence" for roses.

 

I'll never get over this interpretation

[Carmen Del Rey 2,073]

okay so she doesn't say "TOESIES" like some ppl on reddit thought, lmfao. I've been wondering if that's what she said or it's "you tried to take all the pink off my toes, and"

[Vertimus 8,911]

It’s one of my top five all-time LDR songs. 

[Fingertips 72,078]

Love this song so much.  

[Vertimus 8,911]

12 hours ago, Carmen Del Rey said:

okay so she doesn't say "TOESIES" like some ppl on reddit thought, lmfao. I've been wondering if that's what she said or it's "you tried to take all the pink off my toes, and"

I initially thought she said that too, was dismayed, and them realized it was "too, and" 

[partymonster 4,565]

the girls who get it, get it

[mssainttropez 12,732]

When bb first dropped, violets for roses was the first song I listened to. I love it, but not my favorite on the album. It really saved me though when it first came out, I would stream it 24/7 

[Carmen Del Rey 2,073]

15 hours ago, Vertimus said:

It’s one of my top five all-time LDR songs. 

this song is growing on me, wasn't my favorite at first but it's really beautiful, and it's really fun to sing <3

[one time beauty queen 18,381]

this track has got to be one of her most stunning lyrically as well as sonically  - the messages of self-love, healing, freedom & of rejecting control mean so much to me <3

 

"a simple life, I chose this" - is such a simple yet powerful statement &  her delivery of it gets me every. damn. time. 

 

 

 

"God knows the only mistake that a man can make is tryna make a woman change & trade her violets for roses"