Old Money: What's its meaning for you?

[PARADIXO 31,607]

Thoughts?

[HEARTCORE 18,833]

I think it's about loving someone so much, even when they've hurt you and left you. Loving someone unconditionally, despite the fact that they don't love you back. "If you change your mind, I'll come come come" - they love and are with somebody else, but you're still holding on to the hope that they'll change their mind. The "blue hydrangea", to me, sounds like Lana is remembering things that remind her of her lover - fragments of memories from when they were together.

[PARADIXO 31,607]

I think it's about loving someone so much, even when they've hurt you and left you. Loving someone unconditionally, despite the fact that they don't love you back. "If you change your mind, I'll come come come" - they love and are with somebody else, but you're still holding on to the hope that they'll change their mind. The "blue hydrangea", to me, sounds like Lana is remembering things that remind her of her lover - fragments of memories from when they were together.

 

Great! It's an acceptable theory.

[Deadly Nightshade 125]

I'm a sucker for this kinds of Lana songs (see my favs are Blue Jeans, Old Money, YBIATR...)

 

I think the first verses describe her lifestyle, obvious glamour and wealth. (I mean I know it probably wasn't this way really but fitting it with the possibility that it was written for Gatsby). To me it's just the great poetry that is Methamphetamines extended. A painful longing (even now after some time maybe) Not painful but accepting yet still longing for that lover. To me this song highlights her unconditional, infinite love for a person dead or alive. (Imagine how dark it would be if she meant it as in if you call for me ^{give me a signal} she'd run to death for her lover) This song is just pure love, forgiveness and nostalgia. Can't help but cry most of the times. It's also special because she actively THOUGHT ABOUT METHAMPHETAMINES. That song is wow just.       

[Happiness is a butterfly 479]

I think i'm the only ony that thinks it's about death

[TRENCH 15,353]

It's about when K gets out of jail she'll run back to him

[lafleursauvage 323]

Yeah, this song makes me think of someone I recently lost. It makes me think of having had them a part of my childhood, through my teenagehood; all the way until now, and then losing them. "Blue Hydrangea" reminds me of the serenity and peace that came along with the friendship. The song reminds me of the simple days, the times where everything was just.... simple. This song also reminds me of the care-free and beautiful friendship we had. The "Where did you go?" part always gets to me because when you lose someone, don't you find yourself asking that question? And the "the girl you used to call the queen of New York City" part: the friend I'm talking about loved NYC he always said that. Then in the middle of the song, I am reminded of the price that comes with growing up and finding your own place in this world... and the feeling of loneliness that comes along with that. The chorus makes me think of my friend so much, that if he called me right now, I would go visit him. If he came to me right now, I would run to him. Sometimes when I listen to this song, I can imagine us running straight to each other in an open field, and embracing. My explanation doesn't really make sense but, to me, it does. It's a sad song for me.

 

Note: when I say someone I recently "lost", I don't mean we cut ties or our friendship waned and died on its own - I mean that I actually lost this friend, in death. (just wanted to be clear)  

 

so yes, this song also makes me think of death! 

[GangstaBoy 3,930]

Yeah, this song makes me think of someone I recently lost. It makes me think of having had them a part of my childhood, through my teenagehood; all the way until now, and then losing them. "Blue Hydrangea" reminds me of the serenity and peace that came along with the friendship. The song reminds me of the simple days, the times where everything was just.... simple. This song also reminds me of the care-free and beautiful friendship we had. The "Where did you go?" part always gets to me because when you lose someone, don't you find yourself asking that question? And the "the girl you used to call the queen of New York City" part: the friend I'm talking about loved NYC he always said that. Then in the middle of the song, I am reminded of the price that comes with growing up and finding your own place in this world... and the feeling of loneliness that comes along with that.

 

YES YES YES to everything you said! This song reminds me of my childhood, the simple life, the beautiful life... Blue Hydrangeas grew all over my house and my great aunt's so they're a dear childhood memory    If I had to compare Old Money to any other song it would be Video Games, since it evoques the same feeling of nostalgia I felt not only from listening to the song itself but from watching the lovely video Lana edited for it. The super 8 footage of the kids by the pool pretty much sums up for me everything the song is telling. And like someone said, Lana is like an old summertime memory, precious and golden, and so is her music.

[Atom Heart 1,928]

It reminds me of the Great Gatsby movie, the scene when Myrtle got hit by the car.

 

 

In relation to Lana, I see it being about a relationship that failed because of her fame. She is no longer able to live the life of Lizzy Grant, the simple lounge singer. She loves a guy who she cannot be with (or bring herself to end the relationship) and no matter how old/famous she may get she will give it all up for this one guy. Probably one of the only relationships she was truly at peace with.

 

To me, it reminds me never to forget my 'roots', they are what make me who I am & no matter how my life will go I will always remember where I came from. It also connects to death for me as well.

[Intriguing Penguin 867]

I think it was something for Gatsby, because Old Money is a recurring theme throughout the novel. The song though says to me it is about growing up, and going through hardships as adulthood comes closer. I think it maybe about a lover(or friend) who Lana once had, but lost due to her alcoholism days. You can literally hear the smile in her voice when she sings about her parents, but then it seems to disappear on the next line, "still inside I felt alone for reasons unknown to me." Loneliness is a big factor in Lana's lyrics, so she probably is tired of being lonely, and wants to run to the person she is singing about. She just wants to be reunited with that special someone most likely....

 

 

That special someone being K.   

 

 

Is it bad when I first hear the hydrangeas part I thought of 

 

 

[MotelHoney 303]

I think the song's just like Bel Air

 

"I'll run to you, I'll come to you"

[Rafael 3,510]

[Kommander 3,260]

 

 

Is it bad when I first hear the hydrangeas part I thought of 

 

 

 

Me too bae, me too 

[CarcrashBandicoot 759]

I personally think the song is about finding someone when you're young, dumb, and naive and falling in love with them and then realizing that they meant so much more to you than you ever expected, ever after they've left you. She sings about him calling her and sending for her and how she'd come back to him, which in my opinion, shows how much she misses and still needs him. She feels a void since he's gone and she's wanting him to come back to her, and if he does, she'll say yes in a heartbeat. I think that she's showing how you can love someone without them being present in your life anymore. She asks where he's been and where he's gone, meaning she wants to know why he left her and she's wondering if he'll ever call her back just to change his mind and tell her how much he missed and loves her.

She switches the song to talking about her parents and I think this is how she expresses that could always lean on her parents after someone leaves her. She feels alone, even though her parents are there for her, she still feels that void.

 

I personally think this song was about Jimmy because she sings in Ultraviolence about how it "Reminded me of when we were kids." Then in this song, she refers back to that saying "The kids were young and pretty" and "And we were young and pretty." She also says "The girl you used to call the Queen on New York City" which I've always thought was Jimmy's nickname for her.

[Agnese13 132]

My favorite from UV. I can't even express how beautiful it is. For me it just evokes a very nostalgic feeling, of how things used to be in my past. Of the people I was once friends with, of all those special moments I shared with them, yet somewhere that friendship faded away and all that stayed is loneliness. Of how simple life was, that happiness was there, it's just that I never knew it and now it's all gone. I just want it hear live so bad, I would prob be a wreck, but I have to...

[paradise27390 206]

For me, my interpretation is of reflection; she daydreams of how life once was. It's simplicity and finding happiness in the smaller things; memories of summer nights with a young love and how she'd do anything to go back to that era, before the majesty of her world deteriorated into this despair she's been stuck in since all the firing negativity. 

Whatever interpretation you have, the song is undeniably beautiful. I just broke up with my fella 2 days ago and this morning I was playing the album while in the bath; this song came on and I broke down. It's certainly a track that cuts straight to the heart.

 

[PennCentralFan 269]

Considering it's about money and old  money. I think it's about a love between people with some money--old money--meaning East Coast money and the lifestyles of the idle east coast preppy wealthy--the type of world Lana experienced in prep school and where she comes from in a way.

 

You listen to the words and the things that the wealthy have, it reminds of the scenes in the video video games where you see young and pretty rich people just hanging around.

 

I think it's about two wealthy people who were in love as teens or so and it's a song about how she still loves the person or the female character in the song. Not all songs are autobiographical. This could be a song about people Lana knew or a love story she has imagined between two people.

 

I think it's a sister song to Young and Beautiful in a way as well in the lyrics about will you love me when I'm not beautiful but shine with words.

[Anthem 1,557]

First off all, this song is most definitely connected to Young and Beautiful. If I recall correctly, Young and Beautiful was not wrote for Gatsby, another song was but they wanted Young and Beautiful instead, and I believe this was that song.

 

She loves imagery in her music, so the references to the hydrangeas and cars are likely to paint a picture for the listener. They are relics of an old time, much the same ways that "old money" represents an older generation. She talks about a love long lost, and her own identity which she can't get back - she'll never be "The Queen of New York City" in the same way that she was with the man a long time ago, she has moved on and evolved in a way that she can't reverse. I think she believes that the end of their love can't be reversed either, because even though she sings "if you call I'll run" and "if you change your mind I'll come", I always got the feeling in her tone that she knows its in vain because nothing will ever change, he will never come back, just like the glory days of "old money" are long gone.

 

Talking about her parents shows an example of a love that is strong and everlasting - the love she wants but will never get. That is why she feels alone, because she will never have what they do with each other with the man she is fixed on.

 

The repetition of the first verse as the final verse shows the cyclical nature of life and love. Kids grow up to be adults, much like Lana and her lover. Love grows, but it fades away with time. The kids don't realize how much their relationships will mean to them until they are older, like her. They are naive but in a beautiful, innocent, free kind of way. This is what she means by the "power of youth". This youthful ignorance is also something that, once lost, cannot be gotten back.

[veniceglitch 375]

I think it's definitely an update on Young & Beautiful, as others have said. But really, I think it's about fading youth, transformation, girlhood vs womanhood, and pondering what her future holds when her fantasy, looks, naivety, and her men fail her. I think it's really LDR waving goodbye to the past iterations — Trailer Park Princess, Ms. 4th of July, Lolita, et al and evolving into her new life phase, The Lonesome Queen, a precocious girl turned grown-ass complicated woman now more at home in dark jazz clubs and empty mansions than gas stations and high school parking lots. It's very Frances Farmer / Blanche DuBois. (This comparison has been written about.)

I've always noticed this wide-eyed Jezebel-in-training/jaded, world-weary woman tension in LDR's music, and wondered how long she would hold onto the adolescent motifs given that she's nearing 30 and in many ways seems like an old soul. But that's just it: youth and beauty never really reflects on itself — someone yearning for it does (aka someone on the outside looking in, which LDR's music definitely is). Lana's music is almost never about living in the present, even with all those sensory/action words and use of the present voice — it's always about 'remember when,' 'what could have been,' and an imagined past. So, it makes sense that she, as a young but wise woman of 29, would already reminisce about the naive "power of youth" of her own recent/theoretical past. But I think with this album, and this song + The Other Woman tellingly following it, she's ready to let go of girlhood and embrace her dark and isolated matriarch throne. 

Her doing the Malificent theme song actually (if coincidentally) speaks volumes. Lana longs to be the passive, eternally young, and lovely Sleeping Beauty but she will always, deep down, be the equally beautiful, but mortal, complex and tortured Malificent.

[Creyk 11,495]

I honestly thought that this song was an elaborate longing for a Sugar daddy and I related so much

I loved reading everyone's opinions though, we should have a thread like this for a lot more songs