Ultraviolence

[apricockjuice 332]

I was surprised but i think this is definitely right...

 

We can go back to Woodstock

Where they don't know who we are

 

(in the live version I really thought it was "we could go back to the start!" which i liked.)

 

I agree with this, she definitely ends the line with an "awk" sound - I thought she was saying "Estark" but the only place with that name that I could find is in Iran, so.....

[evilentity 13,351]

The background vocals (those 'ooh-ooh's) on the bridge and perhaps other parts of the song were sung by 3/4 of a quartet of African-American sisters called The McCrary Sisters.

[omgitsnathan 142]

I don't know if anyone's talked about this yet, but..
In the digital/physical booklet, it says:
"He used to call me D.N.-
That stood for Deadly Nightshade
'Cause I was filled with **PASSION** (Instead of "Poison")
But bless with beauty and rage"

[GangstaBoy 3,930]

I don't know if anyone's talked about this yet, but..

In the digital/physical booklet, it says:

"He used to call me D.N.-

That stood for Deadly Nightshade

'Cause I was filled with **PASSION** (Instead of "Poison")

But bless with beauty and rage"

 

I think it's a mistake, since she sang poison in the live performance and the Deadly Nightshade is known for its poisonous nature, so passion seems out of place

[my ol man isa batman 480]

I don't know if anyone's talked about this yet, but..

In the digital/physical booklet, it says:

"He used to call me D.N.-

That stood for Deadly Nightshade

'Cause I was filled with **PASSION** (Instead of "Poison")

But bless with beauty and rage"

 

this has been annoying me for ages, there was also the mural/graffiti promo thing that had lyrics to ultra and old money i think, and that had "filled with passion" 

[omgitsnathan 142]

this has been annoying me for ages, there was also the mural/graffiti promo thing that had lyrics to ultra and old money i think, and that had "filled with passion" 

IT'S BEEN ANNOYING ME, TOO

DAMN IT, LANA

[my ol man isa batman 480]

IT'S BEEN ANNOYING ME, TOO

DAMN IT, LANA

 

it happened with the born to die booklet too, AND PARADISE!!! FFS ELIZABETH

[Lanakai 662]

Sorry, this is going to be a long one lol bear with me here.....

 

So I was watching a documentary about this hippie cult in the 70s in LA called the Source Family. While watching I couldn't help but be slapped in the face with how well it fit in with Ultraviolence. I was connecting dots like a motherfucking pro. I recommend watching it to see what I mean (it's on Netflix USA), or you could read these reviews here to get the gist:..

 

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2013/05/09/movie-review-the-source-family-crunchy-cult-story/YAGpjim%202kJkLXDVZSE1xeD29L/story.html

http://thehairpin.com/2013/05/the-source-family

 

Basically Jim Baker was a very handsome, very charismatic, but notoriously violent man that ran away from his wife and child to LA and founded this cult as Father Yod and had many beautiful young men and women join him to live in "peace, love, drugs and rock and roll". He was popular within Hollywood and was very rich and even robbed banks to fund his vegan restaurant, psychedelic band and his "family"..."He basically turned Sex Drugs and Roll and Roll into a religion" is a quote (paraphrasing) from the film. Kinda sounds like the same church Lana would subscribe to...

 

From the doc, the first things that popped out at me were:

 

1) "He used to call me DN that stood for Deadly Nightshade" sounds just like the people in the documentary talking about their hippie names and what they were called in the commune. Names like Galaxy, Orbit, Harvest Moon, Sunflower etc...

 

2) All the references to violence, hitting, etc fit with Jim Baker's history of violence, although I don't know if he was inclined to hit women...

 

3) Quite obviously.... "You're my cult leader" = Father Yod

 

4) The way she's talking about her Jim in the song is nearly identical to former members of the Source describing what it was like to be around their Jim, saying it was like they felt like they were kids again with him being their really cool rich foster dad who smoked a lot of drugs and lived a hedonistic and open lifestyle. The conditions they lived in despite the cult having lots of money, was near squalor with people living in cubby holes and in some instances being denied medical attention and treatment as it went against their beliefs. A child even reportedly died after being denied treatment for an infection. Jim was very strict with all of his commandments despite all the love he had for his "children". He even broke his own commandment of one woman for every one man when he decided to be polygamous and his original cult wife Ah-Om (aka Robin) said she felt as if he "had skinned her alive" when he took 13 wives. His treatment of Robin was very poor but even now she speaks highly of him and that her love for him took on an otherworldly dimension that was out of her control and listening to her talk about him is very similar to how Lana sings about her Jim in UV.

 

I think the inspiration from the Source Family could also bleed into the rest of the album, lending to the Southern California psychedelic surf twang throughout, even referencing the polygamy that was going on in SoC:

 

"And when he calls. He calls for me and not for you"

 

and what Father Yod was all about:..

 

"He prays for love, he prays for peace.And maybe someone new"

 

There might be connections in other songs, I'm still slowly working my way through the album and to be honest I still have the first 5 songs on repeat, so I'm not as familiar with the rest of the album. Oh and I know it probably doesn't mean anything but they reference taking "Black Beauties" in the movie about 10 minutes in.

 

And with this recent instagram selfie with Chuck with the caption "Sister Wives" the Source just fits a little too well:

 

http://instagram.com/p/pF6jVgiZvj/

 

Not only is Sister Wives a polygamy term, they're even dressed like Father Yod's wives. In fact I'd say Lana's really leaning towards a 70s flower child look this era, wouldn't you? Oh and not to mention... Yod/Jim fits Lana's Daddy type to a tee. Heck they even called him that!  (lol Barrie and his beard actually look like a member of the cult tbh)

 

Some pictures....

 

Jim Baker aka Father Yod

 

13 Wives......

 

More promo for UV? No just some more sister wives!

 

More gorgeous pictures of the Source family here

 

I don't think all songs are necessarily related to the Source but I think Lana may have been heavily influenced by them along with Jim Morrison, Kurt, Chet Baker, Jim Jones, Jim Beam, etc, and from her own life. Especially since the documentary came out in 2012 when she probably would have started to conceive what her next album would be.

 

I also believe that she took influence from her own experience with Atlantic Group and how she relates that to the 70s cult experience. To be honest, sometimes I feel like Lana writes songs like she's posting to Tumblr or Pintrest or some shit. Just name checking all the things that influence her and weaving a story around them. Like she's writing her own fan fiction through songs. Actually I still think all the songs written around "Every Man Gets His Wish" are about Lana's life as if it were blended with the movie True Romance. She even took a picture of her and Mike M. compared to Clarence and Alabama so clearly she is identifying with the Character there. It's basically her own blend of reality and fanfiction. But that's a post for another thread lol... 

 

Anyway before I go on and on, because I could with all these "connections" I found in this doc...Has anyone else seen The Source and what are your thoughts on this?

[evilentity 13,351]

^ The first verse of "Brooklyn Baby" would fit your theory too:

 

They say I'm too young to love you

I don't know what I need

They think I don't understand

The freedom land of the 70's

 

As in, she's too young to sing about and identify with a cult prevalent in the '60s and '70s that was about peace, love, sex, drugs, and rock & roll. As I was reading this, the thing I was most curious about was when this documentary came out, which you said at the end was 2012, which you correctly noted would fit perfectly. Whether or not this was part of her inspiration, we have found a lot of cases where she seems to have been inspired by movies and things like that. At the same time we've so far been unable to match certain details in her songs with real life, like the elusive K. I've been thinking more and more lately that when she says all her songs are autobiographical, they're autobiographical of herself watching TV. Or perhaps Netflix in this instance. It reminds me of this quote from her KulturSPIEGEL interview:

KulturSPIEGEL: Is it true that you grew up without a TV?

Lana Del Rey: Even though there was a TV in the living room of my parents' house, it wasn't connected to the cable network, it was just a display for video films. There were normally connected TVs in my father's and mother's rooms on which I was allowed to watch cartoons as a child. But only rarely. My parents thought that TV was too overtaxing for me, that it impressed me too much. They were probably right. When I saw something interesting on TV as a child, I would parrot them for days after that which scared my parents so much that they took the family TV from the network when I was 7. I wasn't allowed to watch TV normally until I was 14. Back then, I used to sit in front of MTV 24/7 and inhale everything I saw on there.

I think it's also notable there are references to TV watching in several of her songs, a pleasure she took much enjoyment from, but was denied her for a long time.

[markeyvee 222]

wow those pictures really do look like UV promos. I love your theory!!

[longtimeman 9,011]

I knew there was something about that photo of Chuck and Lana 

Lana, like a lot of artists, draws from a whole range of sources, including real life, so I wouldn't be surprised if the Source was one of those (if you'll excuse the pun). My first thought, like a lot of people, was that Jim = Jim Jones, but nothing else in the song has anything to do with the People's Temple, except possibly for the violent end, and mass murder isn't really Lana's scene.

[evilentity 13,351]

The other thing I forgot to mention in my last post in this thread about @@Lanakai's theory is that in interviews Lana often used the word "guru" to describe this cult leader. "Guru" often has an Eastern religion connotation and Father Yod/Jim Baker's Wikipedia page says he "studied philosophy, religion, and esoteric spiritual teachings, even becoming a Vedantic monk for a time. He later became a follower of Yogi Bhajan, a Sikh spiritual leader and teacher of Kundalini Yoga."

[Lanakai 662]

The other thing I forgot to mention in my last post in this thread about @@Lanakai's theory is that in interviews Lana often used the word "guru" to describe this cult leader. "Guru" often has an Eastern religion connotation and Father Yod/Jim Baker's Wikipedia page says he "studied philosophy, religion, and esoteric spiritual teachings, even becoming a Vedantic monk for a time. He later became a follower of Yogi Bhajan, a Sikh spiritual leader and teacher of Kundalini Yoga."

This is getting very interesting. Apparently The Source family still exists in an underground movement with people like Billy Corgan and Devendra Banhart. It's all very hipster: http://www.kcet.org/arts/artbound/counties/los-angeles/meet-the-new-aquarians.html

 

I also listened to a bunch of the music the Source made with Yod (apparently they recorded 65 records in 5 years and they only released 9) and it sounds an awful lot like what Lana and Dan did with Ultraviolence (the album) in terms of sound and being "unlistenable". Lots of strange beats and layered sounds, jazz influence and indecipherable lyrics. Lana's sounds a lot more like music of course but the similarities are there none the less and it's quite obvious.

 

I don't know, I wouldn't put it past her to join a "dead" underground cult in LA... Didn't she say she wanted to join a hippy artist commune recently??

[DeadAgainst 1,515]

http://www.full-stop.net/2013/07/30/interviews/michael-schapira/jodi-wiley/

 

Source Family was like an alchemical mystery school – they were occultists. ... really going to a mystical core of all the teachings they were exploring, and being so freeform. And of course the Source Family women were in many ways either young and beautiful or sophisticated women who were wearing gorgeous revealing clothing. ... Father Yod as Jim Baker had been interested in Eastern and Western mysticism since the ’50s, when he was briefly a Vedantic monk. He was immersed in the teachings of Manly P. Hall, who wrote The Secret Teachings of All Ages. I don’t know if you know that book, but it’s a really important work that breaks down esoteric traditions across a variety of cultures — from Qabbalah to Tarot to Astrology.

 

"I'm the Queen of Alchemy ..."

 

Initiation from Father Yod as Initiation from God; broken down and built up again (pledge allegiance to your dead dad)

[labelledejour 22]

Two pictures of The Source Family on those links you sent reminds the 'Fucked My Way Up To The Top' picture background on the booklet

[Lanakai 662]

Wow! This is great findings everyone! Very interesting!

 

another tidbit that stuck out to me like a sore thumb: I also read that Yod like to record his music in one take, never practicing or rerecording as it was more pure and a channel 'direct' from God then. Sounds like someone we know with her practice of recording everything in one take eh?

 

Ah all of this is fitting way too perfectly, have we found the mysterious truth behind Ultraviolence? Lol

 

I think I should make a Source Family mega post because I'm finding more and more connections to other songs and Lana in general as well not just with Ultraviolence. Would you all be interested in that?

[yourdangerousgirl 145]

I think I should make a Source Family mega post because I'm finding more and more connections to other songs and Lana in general as well not just with Ultraviolence. Would you all be interested in that?

DO. IT. I'm so so so interested in this.   

[labelledejour 22]

Please DO it!

[Lanakai 662]

Will do! Give me a couple days to gather my evidence and I'll post in the Lana Thoughts forums!

[Nastja 15]

I´m so excited... Thank you!