Lana’s Fib About Her Age-Some Thoughts

[Sam Gho 116]

The possibility that Lana might be a year older than what was known widely, for some reason bothers me. The discrepancy is so small that I don’t see any advantage for Lana to unnecessarily lie about it. However as I think about it more, I think I have come up with a possible explanation.

 

One of the most mysterious parts of Lana’s past to me has been the time she spent in Alabama. She has mentioned this consistently beginning with her early interviews and I think it is true. However nothing else in her background really makes sense to explain a sojourn to Alabama. Except that if viewed in a certain way, it probably does make a lot of sense.

 

I think when Lana got into high school in Lake Placid she met a guy who was bad news all around (the mysterious K). I think this is the guy who got her into alcohol and probably drugs later. However her drinking freaked out her parents who sent her to boarding school, mainly to get her away from this guy. However I am sure she kept meeting him, despite her parents opposition, e.g. when she came back home for vacations etc. After she finished school, I think her parents really wanted her to break off this relationship, but instead I think she ran away with this guy to Alabama. Instead of going to college she spent a year with this guy down in Alabama, where this guy kept getting into more and more trouble. This scenario would explain many of her lyrics (being on the run, Officer Brown checking on them, kids living the dark side of the American dream etc., there are many, many references in many songs that fit such a scenario), until this guy finally got caught and sent to prison. Not sure he got the death sentence (it’s too melodramatic, but a long prison sentence is as good as dying), and maybe he is still in prison. She said in an interview that he was still around and she was in touch with his mother, with would also be consistent with him being in prison. Anyway, once he got sent away she woke up and came back home, and finally joined Fordham.

 

However, this scenario means that there is a year missing in her life. So for her friends from high school, her years in Fordham would be a year off. I think she realized in early interviews that this was likely to raise more questions later, instead it was easier to just to pretend that she had come to Fordham straight from Lake Placid. She has always been very reticent to speak about her time before NY probably for this reason. This was probably evident in the Complex interview where the interviewer had picked up some discrepancies about her age. Like many things, once you lie about something, even something very small and inconsequential, it becomes difficult to backtrack later. Therefore, according to the scenario I have laid out, she graduated from high-school in 2003, spent about a year with K in Alabama, and joined Fordham in Fall 2004.

 

I also think that most of her songs are about K, although she does not name him (she hints at that in her My Space interview, where she says her songs are always about the same guy). I think she developed a crush on Jimmy Gnecco once she met him in NYC clubs, but if anything it was a short fling (even though she wrote a few songs about it). Jimmy however exposed her to being attracted to older men, but I don’t think she had any significant relationship until she met Mike Mizrahi (early 2009). Some of the songs that refer to old guys probably are written to him, and songs like Afraid, Damn You are definitely in reference to her breakup with him. However, I think she still obsesses about K, and that might make her a difficult person to have a long-term relationship with (although I hope I am wrong, and I really wish she finds a great guy to be with).

 

I spend way too much time thinking about such stuff, gotta stop!

[Guest MissDaytona]

I was told my an ~inside source~ that she has had the Interscope deal for a long time but when she 'blew up' so to speak they said she was 25, instead of 26. They wanted her to be 25 when they found her (even though the found her long before that) and 26 sounded too old to begin in the music industry, too close to thirty.

[RileyThomas 350]

I don't get it though, isn't Nicki Minaj like 29?

[ednafrau 836]

I was told my an ~inside source~ that she has had the Interscope deal for a long time but when she 'blew up' so to speak they said she was 25, instead of 26. They wanted her to be 25 when they found her (even though the found her long before that) and 26 sounded too old to begin in the music industry, too close to thirty.

 

i heard that, too...it's so ridiculous, right? Like 26 is the second half of your twenties so you're too close to 30? :/ It's so dumb to make her lie about being just ONE year younger, when these days it's so easy to find out the truth, and, really, this discrepancy wasn't too hard to come by...In fact, the little lies are what made fans sleuth around (more than they would've if the past hadn't been attempted to be altered or hidden)!

Sam Gho, that is some detective work! You may be onto something. I do think that Jimmy was more than a fling, or maybe it was just that but it was meaningful because perhaps it was the first relevant relationship she had after K. The timeline of her musical output would suggest that she was with Jimmy in 2005 or early 2006, as in the 2006 WLSC Songwriting Contest she first wrote and performed "Pawn Shop Blues", which in a later interview she insinuated was about Jimmy (someone she met at a self-help group - AA - and that was a kind of famous rock star). "Yayo" is about Jimmy for sure, because she posted it to his Facebook wall, dedicated to him, so I think they may have been on and off till 2007. She has also said that Bradley Soileau was chosen because he resembled the guy she was singing about, and he looks a lot like Gnecco. Of course, in the past she has stated that she mixes things up in her lyrics, so that, of course, isn't a guarantee. (At times, she probably combines lyrics about different people in one song.) I also suspect she had a little fling with Van Wilson, the A&R from 5 Point Records, cuz remember in her first Pitchfork interview she said the strangest place she ever wrote a song was in a basement or office after - or while! - making out with a handsome record executive? and he is pretty cute:

After that I suspect she may have been involved with Reeve Carney, but I too consider that her relationship with Mike Mizrahi was truly signficant and important.

Anyway, I don't know if there is any basis to my assumptions, but here are my two cents, anyway ^_^

[Sam Gho 116]

I think the label asking her to change her age would be very surprising and kind of stupid. I think it came from Lana herself, but who knows!

[Sam Gho 116]

Actually, there was something else I wanted to say but forgot. I am sure some of you have seen the following entry about her in Kent yearbook, which suggests she was heading off as a student to SUNY at Geneseo (near Lake Placid), which would be consistent with her having joined SUNY (or not), before going to Alabama, and then joining Fordham a year later.

[ednafrau 836]

If I'm not mistaken, a song of hers called "Ruby Tuesday" contains these lyrics: "Ruby Tuesdays or Mobile* / I love you then, i love you still/ you trust me not cause looks can kill". This is from Twitter, so i don't know if it really is so, but well, one of the songs that may allude to her time in Alabama is nowhere to be found :/

*a city in Alabama

[PrettyBaby 2,219]

If I'm not mistaken, a song of hers called "Ruby Tuesday" contains these lyrics: "Ruby Tuesdays or Mobile* / I love you then, i love you still/ you trust me not cause looks can kill". This is from Twitter, so i don't know if it really is so, but well, one of the songs that may allude to her time in Alabama is nowhere to be found :/

*a city in Alabama

 

Sounds like the slower version of "Hundred Dollar Bill." I've been wondering if "Ruby Tuesday" is just an alternate title for HDB.

[Monicker 3,035]

I was told my an ~inside source~ that she has had the Interscope deal for a long time but when she 'blew up' so to speak they said she was 25, instead of 26. They wanted her to be 25 when they found her (even though the found her long before that) and 26 sounded too old to begin in the music industry, too close to thirty.

 

Not saying anything about you or your source, but this is such stupid reasoning. Humans continually baffle me.

[Monicker 3,035]

If I'm not mistaken, a song of hers called "Ruby Tuesday" contains these lyrics: "Ruby Tuesdays or Mobile

 

I always assumed that was a reference to Mobile gas stations since she's talking about the chain restaurant Ruby Tuesdays.

[ednafrau 836]

I always assumed that was a reference to Mobile gas stations since she's talking about the chain restaurant Ruby Tuesdays.

 

you're probably right! this ignorance (i didn't know ruby tuesdays were located at gas stations!) shows the years it's been since i've been in the US

[IamThatGirlLily 533]

Lana's age also bugged me for a moment. I did some "research" early on and couldn't find her date of birth. If she was born in june 86 that would mean that her and her sister would be a little more than a year apart. And from the photo "Back in the days" we see on Chuck's tumblr, those cuties seem to have more than a single year gap.

 

Now I'm so used to/over Lana mystery that it doesn't even matter. It makes me smirk, Lana thinks about everything, about every detail, she really isn't the kind of person who does something by accident. Everything she says and does have been weigh in, deeply thought out beforehand. She's became more of a control freak since VG. It's funny how her not wanting people to know about her past says so much about her personality.

[Matt 984]

Lana is a walking mystery. We think we know a lot about her, but we really don't. There's a lot behind the Priscilla Presley-esq 'do and the beautiful music.

[Guest Chloe]

It's funny how something so small makes us so baffled.. I just want the truth. It's not that it's a big deal, it's just that sometimes with Lana it would be nice to be told, instead of us always being so curious that we turn into bloody detectives, ahah.

[Guest Maru the Cat]

I think the label asking her to change her age would be very surprising and kind of stupid. I think it came from Lana herself, but who knows!

 

I think it was her decision too.

 

I was told my an ~inside source~ that she has had the Interscope deal for a long time but when she 'blew up' so to speak they said she was 25, instead of 26. They wanted her to be 25 when they found her (even though the found her long before that) and 26 sounded too old to begin in the music industry, too close to thirty.

Not saying anything about you or your source, but this is such stupid reasoning. Humans continually baffle me.

 

I was flirting with this idea myself, although I never thought it was very good reasoning. Slight differences can alter perception, no matter how stupid it is -- I think about my years spent in retail and people rounding down the prices when they purchased something -- "Oh look Marge! It's only $80.00!" *looks at price tag, $89.99, mentally facepalms*

 

WHY DID 1 PENNY MAKE YOU DISREGARD ALMOST 10 DOLLARS?! HOW IS ANYONE THAT STUPID?!

 

My years spent in retail were horrifying. (._. )

[DelRey 35]

Why do record companies even care how old you are when you start in the music industry? If you get abit of wrinkles and grey hair you can always cover it up :s

[IamThatGirlLily 533]

WHY DID 1 PENNY MAKE YOU DISREGARD ALMOST 10 DOLLARS?! HOW IS ANYONE THAT STUPID?!

 

My years spent in retail were horrifying. (._. )

 

It's all about perceptions, few days ago I went shopping w/ friends, just because we had 20% off coupon one of us spent 200 euros, the other bought something that wasn't eligible for that offer and I saved 20 bucks. We bought because we thought it was a good deal. At the end we just spend money on unecessary things.

 

Why do record companies even care how old you are when you start in the music industry? If you get abit of wrinkles and grey hair you can always cover it up :s

 

They care about ages because young is attractive. People don't only listen to music, we deal w/ the whole package consciously or not. When you're a fan, you project yourself with the artist, some part of us want to be like them or be with them. And 25 is, I like to tease one of my friend w/ that, 1/4 of a century. Once you hit 25 you're 100% adult. Nowadays new faces in cinema and music are 15 to 24. It's hard to be 25+ and be "new".

 

The system is screwed up, I agree.

[evilentity 13,343]

Why do record companies even care how old you are when you start in the music industry? If you get abit of wrinkles and grey hair you can always cover it up :s

Yeah, I mean, if she starts looking too old, she could always consider plastic surgery or collagen injections.

[Guest Chloe]

Think of Carly Rae Jepson and Nicki Minaj.. I mean, no one's prejudice against them because of their age. I think it was Lana's decision to lie, not her labels..

[Matt 984]

I don't see the point in lying about her age. I didn't even know her age until a month after listening to her when I looked at her wiki article. Lana's music fits her age and beyond, the real musical age embarrassment is Carly Rae Jepsen & Nicki Minaj. They are both older than Lana and sing like toddlers, Nicki Minaj being the more vulgar toddler of the two.