Essays About Lana Written by LB Members

[yourolllikethunder 4,886]

 

[Sharing my ode to Lana from my substack] Some of you know because last year I didn’t shadddup about it, but I’m an indie musician & poet and I launched a free substack a few weeks ago, following a very long depressive episode, to discuss music, film, art, culture, etc. and help pull me out of it. Today I wrote a post on Lana and thought I’d share it with anyone who might enjoy reading it:

 

the visceral, sprawling, and singular world of lana del rey.

A reflection on my deep admiration for her work, and hope that she finally gets her Grammy.

If you are a Lana Del Rey fan like me, you’ve probably noticed a slew of new content from her—interviews with Harper’s Bazaar and The Sunday Times, an appearance on NBC’s ‘Christmas at Graceland’ special, and a release of a cover song, “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” You may also know that, despite receiving mass public attention over the years and recent, long-deserved critical acclaim—not to mention being the 10th most-streamed artist in the world this year—she has never received a Grammy. I hope that this next round of the awards ceremony, in early 2024, will be the point where that changes for her.

 

“Each listen imprints on your mind like a ray of late-afternoon sun blazing through the cracked windows of an abandoned mansion—right onto a dust-flecked mirrorball, slowly spinning as roses bloom outside ivied walls, despite decades of decay.”

 

If you follow me on social media, you’re probably well aware that I am a firm member of the Church of Lana Del Rey. To me, she has accomplished something throughout her more than decade-long artistic career in the public eye that only select, truly iconic musicians have: she has built a world so uniquely singular and visceral that you know within seconds of consuming any of her music or writing that she could have been the only one to create it. The iconography of her art is breathtakingly interconnected; it sprawls out like a vintage-worn map of a somberly glittering world. One full of hydrangeas, red party dresses, beaches, sizzling telephone wires, fated relationships, California summers, cherry cola, and barefoot dancing; a world that was entirely birthed from the deepest corners of her mind. But beyond the images, her melodies are grand, orchestral, timeless yet irreplicable, eerily beautiful and haunting. Each listen imprints on your mind like a ray of late-afternoon sun blazing through the cracked windows of an abandoned mansion—right onto a dust-flecked mirrorball, slowly spinning as roses bloom outside ivied walls, despite decades of decay.

 

As a staunch feminist since birth, although I loved Lana’s music as early as 2012 or 2013, it pains me to have to admit that I wasn’t always understanding or empathetic of the woman behind the music. In 2014, when she released Ultraviolence, her second studio album, I read one too many think-pieces saying she was glamorizing domestic abuse—I assumed them to be correct off of the album title alone and unfortunately declined to listen until years later. In an eventual deep dive into her life and repertoire, I would learn that she was chronicling her personal experience in violent relationships. It was then I finally listened and recognized that, unless I or anyone else has experienced being a victim of domestic abuse (which I never have), it is not our place to tell survivors how to process their memories, frame their stories, or describe how it felt to endure such a confusing and frightening experience. 

 

In much of Lana’s insightful, often-melancholic, and wistful lyrical musings, I saw myself. I listened and ached along each reference to her mental health journey. I would hear her allusions to lithium and hospitals on “Wildflower Wildfire” off of Blue Banisters (2021) just five months before I would begin therapy for the first time, and finally label my lifelong experiences with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) with depressive tendencies, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). In Lana, I felt I had a kindred spirit who was unprompted and genuine in describing something I’ve understood well at various points in my life: how it feels to merely watch life happen to you, numbed and half-devoid of hope, from “the ballroom of my mind.”

 

While it is true that women have chronicled their sadness before Lana Del Rey made music, her willingness to release the yearning and slow-burning “Video Games” at 73 BPM unintentionally broke ground on the 21st Century ‘Sad Girl’ trope. It is not new or noteworthy to point out all of the music released by artists of all gender identities that emulate their love for her catalog. And in doing so, she unknowingly helped artists across several generations to carve a soft spot for their own desolation and existentialism—to chronicle it in words and music, before they could hope to move past it, or at least find a way to carry it with them in a way that doesn’t shackle them to the past.

 

But, to me, what is most inspiring about Lana is that she never set out to become a modern cultural icon, or to break album and streaming records. In fact, she’s actively discouraged fans from feeling like they need to purchase items from her official shop, and sought to donate her book and ticket proceeds. On a livestream the night of Blue Banisters’ release, I vividly remember her telling us fans, “don’t you even worry about buying anything fancy like the records or the tapes or… you don’t need to do that. We have everything we need.” In 2020, she donated the advance of her poetry book, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, to provide communities in Navajo Nation with clean water. Most recently, she took a tour through some less-traveled venue stops in places like West Virginia and Arkansas, donating “every ticket, every dollar” back into the communities she visited.

 

“She is unparalleled in her relentless pursuit to push oneself to the seeming edge of art’s boundaries, and see what can be created beyond that velvet curtain, without precedent, expectation, or regard for anyone’s reception but her own.”

 

What she has always been driven by is her pursuit of self-actualization through her art, and following her personal intuition. Speaking as a songwriter, myself, we are in an era where it would be far easier to record and release sub-three-minute songs that pander to popular taste and a major label than to create something without any guidebook; despite this, Lana dares to follow her muse and channel her own gift in whatever way it emerges from her subconscious, or as some might say, the universe. And she does so quite literally, even engaging on automatic writing on her 2023 album Did you know that there’s a tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, of which she said:

“I’ve been practicing meditative automatic singing, where I don’t filter anything. I’ll just sing whatever comes to mind into my Voice Notes app. It’s not perfect, obviously. There are pauses, and I stumble. But I’ve been sending those really raw-sounding files to a composer, Drew Erickson, and he’ll add an orchestra beneath the words, matching each syllable with music and adding reverb to my voice. When I’m automatic singing, I don’t have the time and leisure to think about things in terms of colors. It’s very cerebral.” —Lana Del Rey for W Magazine, May 2022

This stream-of-consciousness practice resulted in a nearly six-minute song, totally absent of a verse-chorus-bridge structure, “Fingertips,” which details her familial history, personal trauma, early pressures of fame, and the death of a former flame, among other heavy topics. All I can say to this is, who is doing it like her? She is unparalleled in her relentless pursuit to push oneself to the seeming edge of art’s boundaries, and see what can be created beyond that velvet curtain, without precedent, expectation, or regard for anyone’s reception but her own. What a liberating way to create, to decide that the only metric for our success should be the pride we feel for challenging ourselves, and sharing work in which we love and believe with the world so it can find the people who need it most.

 

Knowing and admiring her work, and her journey toward her highest self, has cast a rose-flush on my own art. Lana has inspired me to be fearless in my attempt to extricate my inner life so that it may be immortalized outside myself, as art I wholeheartedly believe in, that can hopefully outlive myself and withstand time. Her art helped further awaken me to this driving notion: we all harbor inner worlds, cultivating them like gardens during the silent moments of our days. Creating songs and poems with candor, heart, and intention allow all who consume them to walk through our garden and see their own reflections in the flowers, if even for a moment—and to carry this experience in their soul’s fabric, either knowingly or unknowingly, for a lifetime.

“What makes you feel proud?

My records. I love my records. I love them. I’m proud of the way I’ve put parts of my story into songs in ways that only I understand. In terms of my gauge of what’s good, it’s really just what I think. I have an internal framework that is the only thing I measure it by. My own opinion is really important to me. It starts and stops there.” —Lana Del Rey being interviewed by Pitchfork, July 2017

[Embach 42,295]

Omg I loved it!

[yourolllikethunder 4,886]

5 hours ago, Embach said:

Omg I loved it!

thank you so much! 🥹❤️ it was fun to chronicle all the thoughts about her music always swirling around in my brain 

[Embach 42,295]

33 minutes ago, yourolllikethunder said:

thank you so much! 🥹❤️ it was fun to chronicle all the thoughts about her music always swirling around in my brain 

I think that's one of the best parts of being a Lana stan!