Methamphetamines

[Just Cherry 3,767]

Further we dream

Why don’t we go to Coney Island?

For the big dream, why don't we go to Coney Island.

 

Maybe

[Pin Up Paradise 463]

is it me or did the music video for this get deleted from YT? 

[trailerparkdarling- 86]

I personally heard 'blue oyster clove' while listening to it, although in my mind Blue Oyster Cult makes more sense. I just don't hear the 'u' sound.

[Summersault 824]

This very pretty song still bugs me.

 

This is my best guess:

Methamphetamine, pink flamingo
Blue ‘50s queen, Blue Oyster Cloth * (I heard cloth, so I googled oyster cloth, which seem to be something relating to cars) 

[Wryta Thinkpiece 3,344]

"And ocean grow" should probably be "and Ocean Grove," which is a small community in New Jersey. Totally changes the impact of the last few lines.

[Wryta Thinkpiece 3,344]

I hear the "For the big dream" bit that Miss Daytona said, as well, I definitely hear the "b."

That "one day among" line is begging for an extensive search of a 50s blues ballad because it's driving me batty not knowing what ballad she's mentioning.

Also, about that veranda line...

At first I thought Lana was saying something about the veranda looking "ocean gold," but I have no idea what that would even mean. Which is why I'm almost positive she mentions Ocean Grove twice in the song. Only because I figured about five or six different words and it's the one I hear the most. It's hard to tell because the only part that doesn't really get drowned out by the background noise is the
"( r )oh" sound; she does get softer when she says it, so it could just be that the quality and noise cover the "gr" and "ve" sounds. I could be wrong, but it fits the rhyme-scheme she has going.

I'm going to see if filtering out the noise and tweaking the song a bit can help with hearing Lana's voice more. But I'm certain.

You can use "look" as an intransitive verb in many ways, one of them to indicate that something outlooks or views in a specified direction. which in the case of the veranda line (if Lana is saying Ocean Grove,) "looks" would mean that the veranda she's talking about faces Ocean Grove.

"The veranda looks Ocean Grove,
Neon palms sway..."

[Wryta Thinkpiece 3,344]

TIME TO ANALYZE SOME LYRICS. [And I am awfully sorry for post-spamming BUT GODDAMN I LOVE THIS SONG THO]

"Methamphetamines" makes me think of Lana and her lover being tweaked off meth, laying out on the veranda, playing music from the record player (maybe it'd be outside, maybe it'd just be near the window, playing loud). They're being sad together, getting high about being sad together just to be high and sad together, letting the routine run its cycle. Every day. They'd be quiet at first, relying on each other's physical presence for some solace.

Once they started feeling the meth, maybe the lover would tell Lana about a dream from the night before that made him feel more disconsolate and disoriented than any other day. The both of them would exchange more of their recent sad dreams, how it seemed the happier dreams only poured salt on open wounds. They'd segue into talking about older dreams and aspirations, both shared and separate, but hardly anything that would get them smiling.

Other than feeling some kind of sadness, love and yearning, they are just zombified; they're stripped of the people they used to be. Whatever daydreams they had, and probably spoke of on the veranda looking out to Ocean Grove, they're gone. Ocean Grove just grew barren gradually, and then suddenly. Nothing left but a epitaph of all those hopes they had for their life in the Jersey Shore together.

 

The mention of neon palms swaying could be Lana and her lover having a visual hallucination while on meth, trying to find something left within their sight of Ocean Grove that was still beautiful and thriving despite how dead it was in their reality.

Maybe Lana's question of going to Coney Island was her trying to get them both to share another hallucination for entertainment. Maybe they met there and she was trying to reminisce about it. Maybe it was her indirectly saying she wanted to return to simpler times, happier times, and maybe that was the "dream/big dream" she was reminding him of: happiness and simplicity.

Maybe he'd be too tweaked and swamped in his own sadness to pay that much attention to or even answer Lana's question, maybe he'd fear that Lana no longer wanted for nothing but being together. Maybe it broke his heart to hear about a place they felt they couldn't return to just as much as it would have broke his heart to say "That'd be nice, we can do that," all along fearing that going there would mean preparing for the present to soon become history.

No one would know, he'd only respond by handing her the makeshift light-bulb vaporizer, keeping his eyes on all the shapes made by the meth residue and burn marks from the lighter along the glass, letting out an ambiguous "hm." But no matter what he thought, no matter what he would've said, Lana would have understood.

Happier times, even the possibility of living in happier times again, would only make them sadder to think about, and so they would get higher until they just couldn't be bothered getting up from laying on the veranda to stop the record from repeating, to change the music to something happier; until they couldn't be bothered doing anything else together that wouldn't make them sadder. But it wouldn't stop them from talking more about the dreams, about happiness and their lack of it; the only time they weren't disconnected was when they were high on meth and/or sharing somber moments with each other. The disconnection almost didn't even matter because they shared their woe like a telescope; they always saw through the same lens even if they weren't always looking at the same things.

 

They took comfort in knowing that the other knew and felt sadness and hopelessness, what it was like to feel the world around had become desolate. They took those feelings and built an empire on that veranda with them, creating a world for themselves within the one they already inhabited. A world where the broken could know they were broken and self-destructing, love it and be loved for it in every way, something that they can be confident in each other about.

 

“There's a special feeling you get on a veranda that you just can't get anywhere else.” - Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles

 

All there was to live for was every tomorrow that guaranteed coming back to that world together; the rest of the world would tear itself asunder, nothing more would have mattered, nothing less. There was no need to tamper with each other's thoughts or emotions, no need to feign any of them either, because all that was felt then and there was understood, welcomed, and adored. It was a very "let all be and just love me" way of living, and that was all it was about. They were sad, they were hopeless, but they were harmonious. And that made that life a little less lonely.

 

Maybe this moment on the veranda was Lana feeling like there just was nothing left of that life anymore, even with her lover. Maybe that farewell is her thoughts of leaving soon after that, going back to New York, reconsidering what to do with who she became, what she was. Maybe it was her saying farewell to their happier selves and their dreams, laying with her lover, watching the neon palms, feeling her body being pulled into the abyss the veranda kept long hidden inside its mouth of wooden planks, slowly opening wider and wider every day to accommodate for its increasing appetite for Lana and her lover's happiness. They'd sink into that abyss together in Lana's mind, and there would be the most sad-but-content look on her face while they fell asleep where they lay, only to rinse and repeat the next morning.

... And that's what it's like to be in my head while listening to Lana Del Rey except I usually imagine myself in Lana's shoes.

OH. And here's a treat for those who made it up to now...

Consider it what I think would have been the lover's perspective. That, and I fawn over Father John Misty like CRAZY and just wanted an excuse to listen to this song again.

[ConeyIslandQueen262 1,068]

Songs like that make Lana SO special 

[Mileena 2,691]

one of my favourites <3

[James19709 638]

I think it's definitely Blue Oyster Clove. Watch her lips in the video, she doesn't say cult.

[elllipsis 1,441]

Also, about that veranda line...

 

At first I thought Lana was saying something about the veranda looking "ocean gold," but I have no idea what that would even mean. Which is why I'm almost positive she mentions Ocean Grove twice in the song.

 

"The veranda looks Ocean Grove,

Neon palms sway..."

 

Palm trees in New Jersey? I mean, I'm not American so I could be wrong, but it's not the type of thing I associate with the Northeastern coast...

 

"The veranda looks ocean gold" could very well be something like this...

 

 

...which would make the "neon palms sway" line a bit more logical - view from the veranda, ocean sunset, neon lights being turned on at dusk, palm trees...

 

Besides, that "the Jersey Shore was long ago" line kinda hints at the fact that they're no longer there?

(edit: reading your "lost in drugs" theory, that's indeed a possible interpretation / explanation for being physically there but at the same time not really there... however, meth is not really a sadness or introspection inducing drug...)

 

Who knows, though.

[Wryta Thinkpiece 3,344]

Palm trees in New Jersey? I mean, I'm not American so I could be wrong, but it's not the type of thing I associate with the Northeastern coast...

 

"The veranda looks ocean gold" could very well be something like this...

 

 

...which would make the "neon palms sway" line a bit more logical - view from the veranda, ocean sunset, neon lights being turned on at dusk, palm trees...

 

Besides, that "the Jersey Shore was long ago" line kinda hints at the fact that they're no longer there?

(edit: reading your "lost in drugs" theory, that's indeed a possible interpretation / explanation for being physically there but at the same time not really there... however, meth is not really a sadness or introspection inducing drug...)

 

Who knows, though.

That's possible, too. But palms aren't the same thing as palm trees, believe it or not.

[elllipsis 1,441]

That's possible, too. But palms aren't the same thing as palm trees, believe it or not.

 

Oh? I had no idea. What's the difference? Unless you mean palms of one's hands?

 

(Not a native English speaker btw, so sorry in advance if this question is stupid...)

[Wryta Thinkpiece 3,344]

Oh? I had no idea. What's the difference? Unless you mean palms of one's hands?

 

(Not a native English speaker btw, so sorry in advance if this question is stupid...)

Not a stupid question at all! Palms are plants that can look very similar to the leaves of palm trees, there's a huge variety of them! When I read the lyrics, I figured that there were a bunch of potted palms lined up along the veranda.

 

[elllipsis 1,441]

@ Ah, I see! Well yeah, that would make a lot more sense in New Jersey then!

[FIREANDWATER 81]

i think this song is beautiful. it's similar to black beauty, but it's more poetic than descriptive. i think the idea behind the song is that she is relating the deterioration of her life and her lover's life to the deterioration of beaches on the east coast. these places were once full of such joy and youth and a type of ignorant innocence, and now they are barren and trashed and spoiled. the image of "neon palm sway" is incredibly genius to me. very sad. and very powerful for an a cappella song! definitely one of my absolute favorites. it's very brave and very sweet (like leonard cohen's description of janis joplin in chelsea hotel no. 2).

[everymanhashiswish 884]

I hear Oyster Clove for sure

[Wryta Thinkpiece 3,344]

GUYS. I THINK I FIGURED OUT THE SONG SHE SAMPLES IN METHAMPHETAMINES.

It's "Return to Sender" by Elvis, I swear to fucking god. Omg. This totally fucking makes an impact on the lyrics. Lana's done it again.

[elllipsis 1,441]

@ Great catch!! Re: the impact on the lyrics - do you think it could be just the '50s song' she talks about in the lyrics (even if it's actually a 60s song...), or do you think it could go any deeper than that? Pretty cute song btw.

[Wryta Thinkpiece 3,344]

@ Great catch!! Re: the impact on the lyrics - do you think it could be just the '50s song' she talks about in the lyrics (even if it's actually a 60s song...), or do you think it could go any deeper than that? Pretty cute song btw.

I was thinking the same thing! I was thinking back on my reflection of the song, and was considering that maybe, she's alluding to another Elvis song from the '50s, or even an entirely different artist, and "Return to Sender," considering the lyrics and how it's a '60s song, maybe it'd represent the then-and-now factor of the relationship, things changed, the relationship was near its end. Or maybe, she felt more in Elvis' position; trying to salvage the relationship but there was nothing left at that point... I don't know. iamalittletoastedtbh