Paradise and Born to Die Sister Songs

[Guest Dot]

This is such an interesting thread! It's like a playlist thread and a song interpretation thread combined!

 

Alright...let me start...Is it possible to list more than one pair per song?

 

Burning Desire - Summertime Sadness - Body Electric

 

I think it's undeniable that these two have something in common, thematically.

There are a lot of lyrics that seem to somehow connect and referr to each other:

 

"Every Saturday night I get dressed up to ride for you, baby"

"I got my red dress on tonight[...]Got my hair up real big beauty queen style"

"Cruising down the street on Hollywood[...]I drive fast, wind in my hair..."

"Cruising down the coast goin' by 99"

"I'm feeling scared and you know it"

"Nothing scares me anymore"

 

Summertime Sadness is about Lana reminiscing about a love that she had during the time and it brings her "summertime sadness."

Burning Desire talks about how she felt being in this relationship. Words like "on fire", "feeling electric", "telephone wires sizzling" all allude to her "burning desire". So basically SS is part two, while BD is part one.

 

Body Electric is basically a dark version of Summertime Sadness in which she literally referrs to it.

In Body Electric it's really obvious that she's reminiscing a relationship, but not necessarilly the one she talks about in BD & SS.

The bridge indicates that this lover might be dead and she's pretending, that she's having fun and is not hurt...

 

"My clothes still smell like you,
And all the photographs say, we’re still young.
I pretend I’m not hurt,
And go about the world like I’m havin’ fun.

 

In this part she's reminiscing the good times they had, when he was still around, which probably helps her to deal with her pain.

We get crazy every Friday night,
Drop it like it’s hot in the pale moonlight.
And when I pray, feelin’ alright,
Mary swayin’ softly, to her hearts delight."

 

Actually, the bridge line leads into my next comparison:

 

Body Electric - Blue Jeans

 

Body Electric somehow seems to be the flip side of Blue Jeans, in which she describes her lover, comparing him to icons (James Dean) and several genres. In Body Electric she compares herself to icons and famous people, in order to describe her persona.

 

She mourns their relationship and prays in order to get over the end of this relationship:

 

"Grand all the prayer, feelin’ alright,
Mary prays the rosary for my broken mind."

 

and later:

 

"I sing the Body Electric"

 

In Blue Jeans she sings:

 

"I will love you till the end of time[...]Promise I'll remember that you're mine"

 

She actually promises that she'll always remember him and will love him, till the end of time, which she actually does if you listen to what she says in BE.

This guy she's talking about in both of these songs seemed to have a really striking appereance, as she referrs to his body and the way he looked a lot...(I assume this guy is K...[For K, Part 1/2])

 

Cola - Lucky Ones (- Prom Song aka. Teenage Wasteland)

 

I know this might be a really really weird comparison, but these songs are two sides of the same story...

 

Okay...so we know that Lana apparently had a relationship with her English teacher, right? She talks about this relationship in Prom Song/Teenage Wasteland...

 

Now keep that in mind, while reading the following lines:

 

"Let's get out of this town, baby we're on fire" (LO) "Let me take you out of this town" (PS)

"Everybody told me love was blind <- She's referring to English literature, Shakespeare to be specific

"You taught me, that it was good to be crazy"

 

In Lucky Ones she says that her "friends go down" and how everybody told her that "love was blind", mainly saying that people told her not to take part in this relationship, because it's wrong and it'll cause a lot of problems. She obviously doesn't care and thinks that there's nothing wrong about this relationship, because "love is blind". When she says her friends go down, she could mean that her friends don't understand and don't accept this relationship.

 

In Prom Song she describes this almost literally:

 

"I know that they think,
I've come undone,
But I'm in love,
I wanna run, run, run away."

 

"So even then when no one's friends,
Were really serious..."

"You know that we'll never leave if we don't get out now, now, now"

"Let's get out of this place,
'Cause you're starting to waste,
Within this teenage wasteland.

You will never see my face,
If you don't get me out of this place,
Now, baby, I'm not crazy." <-> "You taught me that it was good to be crazy"

"Every now and then, the stars align
Boy and girl meet by the great design"

"You are by far,
The brightest star,
I've ever seen,"

 

Okay so there really is a connection between Lucky Ones and Prom Song, but what about Cola?

 

Cola deals with a woman who is trying to seduce a married man to escape to "the other side". Short: Lana as a homewrecker...

If you think about my Lucky Ones/Prom Song comparison you'll realize that Cola could actually be the continuation of this story...Let's read betweeen the lines...

 

"My pussy tastes like Pepsi Cola"

 

This line might mean much more than what it appears to mean at the first sight! It might indicate that sex with her might be a treat delicious, but somehow dangerous and bad for you. It's like her pussy might make someone fall in love with her...something like that...

 

"Come on baby let's ride...we made it out to the other side"

 

This line talks about escaping from your daily life into something better, a Paradise.

 

So all this shows that there is a slight connection between these three songs as they all deal with a similar theme. There is are some lines in Cola that show a slight reference to Lucky Ones, as well...

 

"Oh, he's in the sky with diamonds

And he's making me crazy"

 

This is another reference to the whole theme with Lana and her lover as stars in the sky...(I was going to show another reference to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, but I think I'll just leave it there.)

 

"I've had a taste for men who are older"

 

Indicating that her lover is older, which is also somehow shown in Lucky Ones when she says that he "scooped her up, like a baby" this has this whole "daddy" thing to it.