Was Carmen another name Lana went by?

[CarcrashBandicoot 759]

I was just listening to Carmen and then I listened to Ride and after paying attention to the Intro/Outro to Ride, she mentions that she believes in the kindness of strangers. I don't know, it's just an idea, but does anyone think that either of these songs could be possibly related or maybe she's "Carmen." Not sure, just a small idea/theory. Any thoughts would be good.

 

(I'm being serious, so please, no bs comments about how ridiculous this sounds.)

[bbb 61]

Well, in All Smiles lana sings "that's the story of the girl you know, me" , which evolves as "that's the little story of the girl you know" in Carmen, so possibly. Despite this, I don't believe we can take lyrics as evidence to Lana's past - songs are made to express ideas, not necessarily factual information about someone's life

[GangstaBoy 3,930]

Well, I once heard (or read, idk) in an interview that Carmen was really something special to Lana and that it was inspired both in Marilyn and herself...

[Elle 114,583]

The name Carmen is used in Navokov's Lolita.. "Oh my Carmen, my little Carmen.."

[Lirazel 700]

I always kinda related the Carmen character to Lana, but not in a literal way... just that she's a made-up, condensed version of teen!Lana.

[Mileena 2,691]

I don't think it was a stage name, however I believe it's the name she's almost given to her teenage self. 

[Jazzmin 297]

The name Carmen is used in Navokov's Lolita.. "Oh my Carmen, my little Carmen.."

And in "Lolita" Carmen is also a significant reference to that opera. I have a suspicion that Lana too references to it in her songs but to be honest I've never checked it... Actually, I do not know the opera (although I want to because a friend of mine told me it is really good!) and I just hope to go and see it in theater one day.

 

So that's it, before I go any further I gotta see "Carmen" >.< . But yeah, Carmen is likely to be her alter ego, just in the way Lolita is.

[Philomene 927]

Carmen is a tzigan, femme fatale who had 2 guys fighting over her vagina and got killed by her lover in the end. 

This is very famous :

Love is a gypsy's child,
it has never, never known what law is,
if you do not love me, i love you
if i love you, then beware!
if you do not love me,
if you do not love me, i love you!
but if i love you,
if i love you, then beware!
 

It depicts love, passion, seduction and madness with sexual undertones. Imo that's why there is a French part in Carmen (it is by Bizet and he is French).

My favorite interpretation of Carmen though is the Russian ballet with Schedrin's remastered version.

[DeadAgainst 1,514]

There are always two Lanas, two voices, two roses ... red and white. How one is seen by others and how one truly is. "I was a singer - not a very popular one."

 

Put your red dress on, put your lipstick on
Sing your song, song, now, the camera's on
And you're alive again

 

charm (n.) c.1300, "incantation, magic charm," from Old French charme (12c.) "magic charm, magic, spell; incantation, song, lamentation," from Latin carmen "song, verse, enchantment, religious formula," from canere "to sing" (see chant (v.)), with dissimilation of -n- to -r- before -m- in intermediate form *canmen (for a similar evolution, see Latin germen "germ," from *genmen). The notion is of chanting or reciting verses of magical power.

 

[slang 1,509]

LDR in her GQ interview talks about Born to Die being about lost loves with alcohol being mentioned as one of them. Here's a  quote from the article: "A great deal of what I wrote on Born To Die is about these wilderness years. A lot of the time when I write about the person that I love, I feel like I'm writing about New York. And when I write about the thing that I've lost I feel like I'm writing about alcohol because that was the first love of my life. Sure, there have been people, but it's really alcohol."

 

It is not improbable that the song Carmen refers to herself in a cautionary fashion as a possible LDR, it also has a historical flavor (as does Ride) being about a teenage alcoholic with a thrill-seeking wanderlust, a past which LDR seems to have shared. So yes, I think Carmen is LDR but only within the scope of the song. Carmen is not a personna like May or Lizzy(?), but possibly a phase of her life. 

[DeadAgainst 1,514]

 

Tropico + the "Carmen" video say yes

 

Note the recurrent "red dress" motif of her Carmen quasi-alter-ego

[CarcrashBandicoot 759]

Well, in the music video for Ride, it did show her wearing a red dress with her lipstick on. She says in Carmen, "put your red dress on, put your lipstick on." I'm not sure if these are actually related or connected, which is one thing I'd love to ask her. I mean, when I meet her and when I go to one of the really small fan meet-ups that she has enough time to answer questions, then I'm going to ask her if some of Born To Die was based on her past.

But what I'd like to know is... Do you guys think that any other songs, released or leaked, that is  related to the same persona of Carmen, whether it was a made up thing or a past name she went by?

[DeadAgainst 1,514]

Do you guys think that any other songs, released or leaked, that is  related to the same persona of Carmen, whether it was a made up thing or a past name she went by?

 

Yes. Having thought about this long and hard (like my dilz) . . . Carmen represents the phenomenon of the pop music singer as objectified image. Observe "Noir"--

 

Walking is an art, so is my body

Pappy is a workaholic, I'm his little party

I'm Miss Parlor-Tricks, sips above the 'cardi

I can make you dope, sick from the naughtiness

He says "who the best?" You is!

 

I'm glamorous

Famous

Notorious

Dangerous, but I'm crazy

I'm gonna leave you, he said you're not a real girl

You're like a cartoon, all caught up in this fame game

Yo, good luck, good luck, good luck

And may all the stars in the sky bow down to you

We're through

 

You gotta be smart, and I'm a lil' smarty

Pappy is a gangster, I'm his little dolly

 

This song is not about Lana--it's about Lady Gaga (Stefani with the Mafia daddy). Then in "Carmen" acapella:

 

Her walk is art,

Her words are lightning,

Striking everyone when she pass by them.

Carmen,

Darling,

Doesn’t have a problem,

She’s lying to herself ’cause her liquor’s top shelf,

It’s alarming honestly how charming she can be,

She’s fooling everyone,

Telling ‘em she’s having fun.

She looks animated

Like a cartoon baby with a tiara smile and a shortcake heart,

Yo she looks animated,

Like a cartoon baby with a champagne sighs and her cocaine heart,

 

This is the cartoon pop singer of the Katy/Gaga type; all superficial AudioTune bubblegum artifice ("Walk, walk fashion baby"). Then in "Criminals Run the World," suddenly the Gagaesque pop figure metamorphoses into Lana herself, or a certain aspect of her persona:

 

Fingertips in the shape of a gun

Raise it up to your heart, pow, done

Ruby lips pop pink bubblegum

Bye bye baby, bye bye sun

I'm Lana Del Rey from the U.S. of A.

Godfather ordered up a hit from the grave

You know why I'm here so I'm not gonna say

Fuckin' up your life in every possible way ...

 

Black bra, red dress, makeup on

I'm the new politician

It ain't rock, but you done rolled

Bye bye baby, loser, I won

Lana Del Rey from the U.S. of A.

A figment of your imagination

 

Pay attention to that last line--Lana as the imaginal bubblegum pop star is presenting herself as an anima projection of an ideal feminine image--

 

The Swiss psychologist C. G. Jung [1] recognised this phenomenon and gave these idealised and projected components of our psyche the title "archetype". Jung identified several archetypes, and it is worth mentioning the major and most influential.

The Anima is the ideal female archetype. She is part genetic, part cultural, a figure molded by fashion and advertising, an unconscious composite of woman in the abstract. The Anima is common in men, where she can appear with riveting power in dreams and fantasy, a projection brought to life by the not inconsiderable power of the male sexual drive. She might be meek and submissive, seductive and alluring, vampish and dangerous, a cheap slut or an unattainable goddess - there is no "standard anima", but there are many recognisable patterns which can have a powerful hold on particular men.

 

The Land of Gods and Monsters is the world of artifice that we inhabit (the lower created world) that is more externalized image than reality. Now ... look in Tropico, and there we have "Carmen" as Eve, the pole dancer in red as objectified image--she is Adam's anima projection. At the end, they will return to each other. The "china doll" is "nothing" without him. Mandler says (and this is about as much of an explanation of "Carmen" as we're probably going to get):

 

“There is this woman who has this outside, and then the songs she sings about represent something completely different. The two don’t really go together, and all the mystery of who she is and where she’s from, and what she’s singing about. There’s that really incredible duality, so with that, kind of framework in mind, we’ve explored different versions of that archetype--the pulling of the veneer, the search for truth in yourself and in the world around you, and ultimately being disappointed in what you have and how you find something better."

 

Lana, of course, does not wish to be an empty image without substance ("you don't wanna be like me"), someone outwardly glamorous but dying inside (as her fellow pop stars are perceived to be), but true to herself and her own being. Thus is she torn between the girl in white, as who she is as an artist in her inner nature, and the girl in red, as the image she must present to the world. The ongoing process is in making the inner like the outer ("opulence is the end").

 

The irony is that Lana, too, was accused of being a fake and manufactured image--but in such ways we are often forced to confront our own shadows.

[CarcrashBandicoot 759]

Yes. Having thought about this long and hard (like my dilz) . . . Carmen represents the phenomenon of the pop music singer as objectified image. Observe "Noir"--

 

 

This song is not about Lana--it's about Lady Gaga (Stefani with the Mafia daddy). Then in "Carmen" acapella:

 

 

This is the cartoon pop singer of the Katy/Gaga type; all superficial AudioTune bubblegum artifice ("Walk, walk fashion baby"). Then in "Criminals Run the World," suddenly the Gagaesque pop figure metamorphoses into Lana herself, or a certain aspect of her persona:

 

 

Pay attention to that last line--Lana as the imaginal bubblegum pop star is presenting herself as an anima projection of an ideal feminine image--

 

 

The Land of Gods and Monsters is the world of artifice that we inhabit (the lower created world) that is more externalized image than reality. Now ... look in Tropico, and there we have "Carmen" as Eve, the pole dancer in red as objectified image--she is Adam's anima projection. At the end, they will return to each other. The "china doll" is "nothing" without him. Mandler says (and this is about as much of an explanation of "Carmen" as we're probably going to get):

 

 

Lana, of course, does not wish to be an empty image without substance ("you don't wanna be like me"), someone outwardly glamorous but dying inside (as her fellow pop stars are perceived to be), but true to herself and her own being.Thus is she torn between the girl in white, as who she is as an artist in her inner nature, and the girl in red, as the image she must present to the world. The ongoing process is in making the inner like the outer ("opulence is the end").

 

The irony is that Lana, too, was accused of being a fake and manufactured image; but in such ways we are often forced to confront our own shadows.

 

Woah. The way you explained it and shit with actual quotes, you looked into this, huh? I mean, damn.

 

I find Lana as someone who has these parts of her life that she keeps secret but she may have written about in her songs and named them other things (Lizzie Grant, Lana Del Rey, May Jailer, possibly Carmen (What would be Carmen's last name...? o.o ), and Sparkle Jump Rope Queen) and that way, she could live this other life as a star named Lana Del Rey, someone she conjured up from inside and brought to life. Jimmy is who I think gave her the name, though I'm not completely certain.

 

 

 

 

I learned how to make love from the movies

He found me waitressing at Ruby Tuesdays

He said I wanna buy you a classic white milk shake

I said I'll serve you up a special side of heartbreak

(Special side of heartbreak)

I was working down at the corner cafe

You drove by in a Chevrolet

Whistle at me as my hips go sway

Lana Del Rey how you get that way?

(How you get that way?)

I said

He loves my heart shaped sunglasses

He loves the heart shape my ass is

Crystal crystal champagne glasses  

If I remember right, she sings about Jimmy having the Chevy. So maybe it's other people giving her these ideas for her names.

 

Then again, the theory that Carmen is the typical pop star comes in mind.

 

 

Oh, and what's up with the red dress? Does she like it for some particular reason or something...?

[Creyk 11,497]

She always reads the same books so of course the Carmen references are all-over her songs, whenever she reads it again those same thoughts get into her creative machine and come out in a different way, depending on what she is going through at the moment.

So of course, there is a connection.

She said that carmen is the typical story of the bad girl we know or something like that, and she was like that, so in a part yes, it's about herself as well, but also about a type of women.

[slang 1,509]

As much as I'm warming up to @@DeadAgainst analysis, I still think Carmen is principally about LDR's alcoholism. There is also a strong alcoholism theme in the *video* for Ride as there are just too many cut shots to booze for that not to be an important idea in the personal meaning for that video (also notice LDR's character is abstinent, it's the men who partake the booze). The extension of Carmen to pop figures in general might be reasonable given LDR's (and Barrie's) fascination for tragic loss of amazing talent due to substance abuse and/or depression. 

 

Also on  "Carmen represents the phenomenon of the pop music singer as objectified image" @@DeadAgainst 

 

I've always thought the song Dum Dum was the precise expression of how LDR views her own image in pop music, but it is not the average image of a female superstar. She seems a little freaked out at her effect on her audience (e.g. me AKA Dum Dum). I also like the bit of S & M there:

 

I’m a bad jazz singer

Givin’ You the finger

No matter what you linger

Cause you like me even when I’m mean

I’m the queen

 

In short, her images of herself as "objectified image" seem much more personally tailored to herself, to be specifically about other artists, although So Legit and Hit and Run do seem to be about objectified images in general, imo. 

[DeadAgainst 1,514]

The red dress = the red rose that reappears in all of her videos; the only explanation I can offer is purely metaphysical

 

Caught between Eve and Mary--the eternal war in her mind

 

She calls herself "Lana" all the time, so that might not be a solid lead

 

Vivien Leigh is both Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche DuBois (?)

 

"Dum Dum" was recorded back in 2010; but maybe she had it planned all along; her mimetic interpretation of the doomed female pop starlet

 

"I'm dying, I'm dying
She says you don't want to get this way
Famous and dumb at an early age
Lying, I’m lying"

 

 

Another sign with no regret
More coins inside her hand
One more time to own respect
No mercenary she stands
I'm no boy stealing pennies from the poor
Break it down
Can't you see she's the dum-dum girl

Another hand upon her hair
Time probably erased distaste
And so she's left outside of guilt
Break it down
Can't you see she's the dum-dum girl

 

If the Tropico pole-dancer is Carmen as she hints, then "Gods and Monsters" ties into it as well--

 

No one's gonna take my soul away
I'm living like Jim Morrison
Headed towards a fucked up holiday
Motel sprees sprees and I'm singing
'Fuck yeah give it to me this is heaven, what I truly
Want'
It's innocence lost
Innocence lost

When you talk it's like a movie and you're making me
Crazy -
Cause life imitates art
If I get a little prettier can I be your baby?

 

So, again . . . the portrait is of the tragic pop singer as the archetypal angel lost in the lower world, headed towards an early death, as you say

 

It could be her own past self (lost, but then found), someone she could've been, or it could be anyone who puts a false image to conceal reality

[CarcrashBandicoot 759]

 

The red dress = the red rose that reappears in all of her videos; the only explanation I can offer is purely metaphysical

 

Caught between Eve and Mary--the eternal war in her mind

 

She calls herself "Lana" all the time, so that might not be a solid lead

 

Vivien Leigh is both Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche DuBois (?)

 

"Dum Dum" was recorded back in 2010; but maybe she had it planned all along; her mimetic interpretation of the doomed female pop starlet

 

"I'm dying, I'm dying

She says you don't want to get this way

Famous and dumb at an early age

Lying, I’m lying"

 

 

 

If the Tropico pole-dancer is Carmen as she hints, then "Gods and Monsters" ties into it as well--

 

 

So, again . . . the portrait is of the tragic pop singer as the archetypal angel lost in the lower world, headed towards an early death, as you say

 

It could be her own past self (lost, but then found), someone she could've been, or it could be anyone who puts a false image to conceal reality

 

Hell, it could've been a friend of hers, it could just be the pop star thing, it could be anything, but that's one thing I love about Lana. For me, each song weaves into all of the other ones. Everything seems like they have about 2-3 different stories she wants to tell, but she tells them in different songs and you have to think about it and put them together. I'm just thinking randomly at this point lol

[DeadAgainst 1,514]

Girl in white, crowned with stars -- Mary, the Queen of Heaven



Girl in red -- Eve, "got my red dress on tonight, dancing in the dark in the pale moonlight" (the disco ball is a crescent moon!)



The American flag -- RED and WHITE together, "blue's in the skies" crowning her with stars

 

 

Gold -- "I know a way to make gold by mixing our souls to escape reality"



"Paradise is a (pinball) game, you have to wonder--I just ride"

 

 

Is this a real shot? Are these bands deliberately placed? FATAL CHARM = CARMEN who FOREPLAY(s) LANA DEL REY ???

ALAN SMITHEE FIASCO ("the way you talk it's like a movie and you're making me crazy, 'cause life imitates art")

FINGER TIGHT . . . "have to touch myself to pretend you're there" (???)