If one artist speaks to the affinity between music and literature, it’s Lana Del Rey. Even earlier than the discharge of her 2020 poetry assortment Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, she wove nice works of poetry, prose, drama, and philosophy into her eclectic catalog. From Sylvia Plath to Walt Whitman, Lana’s lyrical library is huge, and shut studying uncovers her complicated considerations with time, being, and identification.
To dig deeper into Lana’s literary pursuits, we’ve created a information to the writers who encourage her, masking each clear references and extra delicate interpolations.
Hearken to the most effective Lana Del Rey Songs on Apple Music and Spotify.
Sylvia Plath
Main as much as the discharge of Ocean Blvd, Lana wrote on her Instagram: “This was the evening of blue banisters reviews, Beverly Wilshire. . . They called it diaristic . . . And I thought of you @jenstith and the poem, you love about the fig tree? – and how she was trying to figure out which fig to choose, but they all sort of looked alright and she never had the time to choose just one. And then I wrote this album, and I picked one.”
The passage in query comes from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, the one novel revealed by the confessional poet earlier than her dying in 1963. Esther – a semi autobiographical model of Plath – compares selecting a life path to sitting on the backside of a fig tree, ravenous because of her indecision. “I wanted each and every one of them,” Plath writes, “but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
Much like Plath, Lana has shared her perception that one should select a single path and pursue it wholeheartedly. “I’m a big believer in you have to close the door, lock it, throw away the key, and that’s when the good stuff moves in . . . Sometimes I’m reaching for one thing, but I’m still all the way in this other place, and it doesn’t really work like that,” Lana mentioned in an interview with PNC Dwell Studio, reflecting on her resolution to pursue music.
Lana has typically been in comparison with Plath for the disappointment in her poetry, lyrics, and supply, and he or she even describes herself as a “24/7 Sylvia Plath” throughout “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but i have it.” However, as each the music title and The Bell Jar passage recommend, Lana additionally calls upon Plath in moments of hope. Fairly than sitting on the backside of the metaphorical fig tree, stilled by disappointment and indecision, Lana reaches for the department she needs most.
Vladimir Nabokov
Lana’s love for Russian-American creator Vladimir Nabokov is well-documented, from her music “Lolita” to the cursive “Nabokov” tattoo on her proper arm. She particularly took inspiration from his polarizing novel Lolita in her Born to Die and Paradise eras.
“Light of my life, fire of my loins,” Lana sings on “Off to the Races,” pulling instantly from the opening traces of Lolita. The phrase “Velvet night” in “This Is What Makes Us Girls” is one other line borrowed from the novel, and one which stands out for its placing, descriptive high quality. Followers additionally speculate that “Carmen” could also be a reference to the scene within the novel when Humbert Humbert and Lolita sing, “Oh my Carmen, my little Carmen.” Even the music’s French monologue portion has Nabokov written throughout it: The creator grew up talking French and sometimes dipped out and in of the language in his work.
Walt Whitman
Subsequent to Lana’s “Nabokov” tattoo is one other in the identical cursive font: “Whitman.” Walt Whitman, a nineteenth century American poet, was recognized for his sensual verse and mythology of self – qualities that seem in Lana’s lyrics and poetry as effectively. Particularly, Lana borrows the title and refrain of “Body Electric” from Whitman’s poem “I Sing The Body Electric,” a celebration of the human physique and its particular person components. Along with name-dropping Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, Lana sings, “Whitman is my daddy,” together with the poet in her aesthetic of subversive, classic Americana.
You too can hear Lana reciting an excerpt from “I Sing The Body Electric” in her Tropico quick movie: “Womanhood, and all that is woman – and the man that comes from woman . . . Oh I say, these are not the parts and poems of the Body only, / but of the Soul / Oh I say now, these are the soul!”
The Bible and John Milton
Earlier than she was penning hit songs, Lana studied philosophy and metaphysics at Fordham College, expressing a deep curiosity in “how and why we ended up on Earth,” in line with a 2017 interview with Vogue. It is smart, then, that Lana references Genesis, the primary e-book of the Previous Testomony, and the one which tells of Earth’s creation.
Throughout the “Body Electric” portion of Tropico, Lana presents herself as Eve and actor Shaun Ross as Adam in an off-kilter Backyard of Eden. The quick movie opens with a voice studying, “And the spirit of John moved upon the face of the waters; And John said ‘Let there be light’ and there was light; And John saw that it was good.” The opening traces echo the Ebook of Genesis, however as a substitute of God, there’s John Wayne – and Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Jesus quickly seem by his facet.
On the finish of “Body Electric,” Lana eats the forbidden fruit, simply as Eve does in Genesis, and the 2 characters quickly discover themselves in a postlapsarian Los Angeles, AKA “the garden of evil” and “the land of gods and monsters.” However, because the Adam and Eve figures are expelled from Paradise, Lana reads “I Sing The Body Electric,” celebrating relatively than condemning the physicality and sensuality of the human physique.
Lana’s retelling of Genesis calls again to the mannequin established by seventeenth Century English author John Milton, whose Paradise Misplaced reimagined the Fall of Adam and Eve by means of subversive poetic units and classical modes of storytelling. Throughout the “Gods & Monsters” portion of Tropico, Lana sings, “It’s innocence lost,” echoing the title of Milton’s nice Christian epic. On the finish of the music, Lana says of Los Angeles: “Some poets called it the entrance to the Underworld, but on some summer nights, it could feel like Paradise, Paradise Lost.”
Later, on the Honeymoon observe “God Knows I Tried,” Lana returns to Genesis but once more, singing “Let there be light / Light up my life.” As she particulars her struggles with fame and the scrutiny that comes together with it, she seems to be for the sunshine — a motif that seems once more in Ocean Blvd tracks “Kintsugi” and “Let The Light In (feat. Father John Misty).”
Oscar Wilde
“I had a vision of making my life a work of art,” Lana Del Rey mentioned throughout one in every of her first interviews. All through her Born to Die period, Lana confronted criticism for creating what many regarded as a manufactured character, and whereas her assertion could also be interpreted as enjoying into this narrative, it additionally engages with the work of nineteenth century author Oscar Wilde.
Wilde spent a lot of his profession within the conflation of artwork and life, most famously in The Image of Dorian Grey, which tells the story of a person who needs to have the everlasting fantastic thing about his portrait and loses his soul within the course of. An analogous theme runs by means of “Gods & Monsters” as Lana struggles to carry onto her soul in Los Angeles. She even quotes Wilde’s “The Decay of Lying,” singing, “life imitates art.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“God’s dead. I said, ‘Baby that’s alright with me,’” Lana sings on “Gods & Monsters.” Lana’s early profession was saturated in deadly, nihilistic themes, however that is the one time she instantly quotes thinker Friedrich Nietzsche. Nevertheless, it ought to be famous that she took a extra optimistic flip in 2017 with the discharge of Lust for Life, even opting to smile on the album cowl.
Allen Ginsberg
“I’m churning out novels like Beat poetry on amphetamines,” Lana sings on the darkish, nostalgic “Brooklyn Baby.” The Beat subculture of the 40s and 50s embraced new literary varieties impressed by jazz, drug use, spirituality, and a need to defy the norm. Poet Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” – written in Berkeley, California within the mid-Fifties – has confirmed significantly influential on Lana, and he or she even contains an excerpt in Tropico.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,” Lana reads on the movie’s climax. Fairly than condemning lawlessness and immorality, “Howl” indicts society for its remedy of these on the margins. By studying the poem at what may be seen as the peak of her protagonists’ ethical decay, Lana attracts consideration to their struggling in a world that has confirmed unkind.
In a 2014 interview with NPR, Lana discusses her infatuation with the Beat poet: “I think the thing I really got from Ginsberg was that you can tell a story through kind of painting pictures with words. And when I found out that you could have a profession doing that, it was thrilling to me. It just became my passion immediately, playing with words and poetry.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Lana’s “Young and Beautiful” stays one of the vital memorable tracks from Baz Luhrmann’s movie adaptation of The Nice Gatsby. Capturing the novel’s themes of outward magnificence and deep nostalgia, the music soundtracks Daisy and Gatsby’s reunion. Later, within the Ultraviolence observe “Old Money,” Lana revisits these topics as she sings to an previous lover: “But if you send for me, you know I’ll come / And if you call for me, you know I’ll run.”
Although “Old Money” stays a Lana deep reduce, some have caught onto its “Young and Beautiful” similarities, with traces similar to “Will you still love me when I shine / From words but not from beauty?” In her assessment of Ultraviolence, Sasha Geffen from Consequence of Sound even writes that it “sounds like it’s sung through Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby’s lost love whose story was only ever told by the men around her.”
Echoes of Gatsby reverberate by means of “Art Deco” from Honeymoon as effectively. Not solely was Artwork Deco a well-liked type within the 20s and used closely all through Luhrmann’s movie, however Lana sings, “A little party never hurt no one” – a seeming nod to “A Little Party Never Killed Nobody” by Fergie, GoonRock, and Q-Tip on the film soundtrack. The jazzy trumpet woven by means of the trip-hop synths additionally evokes the sound of the 20s with a contemporary contact.
Lastly, Lana seems to return to Fitzgerald in “Tomorrow Never Came,” with the road “on that side of paradise.” The title for Fitzgerald’s novel This Facet of Paradise truly comes from the poem Tiare Tahiti by Rupert Brooke, and it means to be on the opposite facet of heaven.
Henry Miller
The “on that side of paradise” line on “Tomorrow Never Came” finishes with one other speculated literary reference: “In the tropic of cancer.” It’s attainable that Lana is referencing the latitude the place the solar is most instantly overhead, which is arguably its personal type of paradise. Nevertheless, followers have additionally theorized that this can be a name out to Tropic of Most cancers by Henry Miller, which is “notorious for its candid sexuality.” In the event that they’re right, this wouldn’t be the primary time Lana has referenced a controversial piece of literature, as each Tropic of Most cancers and Howl have each been on the heart of well-known obscenity trials.
T.S. Eliot
Between Honeymoon’s “Art Deco” and “Religion,” Lana recites an excerpt from T.S. Eliot’s “Burnt Norton,” remarking, “Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future / And time future contained in time past / If all time is eternally present / All time is unredeemable.”
By means of this specific excerpt, Lana explores the flattening of time and its ever-present passage. In contrast with the nostalgia of “Old Money,” “Young and Beautiful,” and “Brooklyn Baby,” this cyclical description gives a extra complicated look into Lana’s relationship with time.
Ernest Hemingway
Although Ernest Hemingway by no means met T.S. Eliot (and really expressed fairly a little bit of distaste for the poet’s work), they’re typically introduced into dialogue with each other – together with on Lana’s Honeymoon. Following “Burnt Norton,” Lana croons, “You’re my religion,” a line presumably taken from A Farewell to Arms. On “Money Power Glory” from Ultraviolence, Lana additionally subtly nods to The Solar Additionally Rises, singing, “The sun also rises / On those who fail the call.”
Mary Shelley and Victorian Literature
On the extremely wordy “Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he’s deep-sea fishing,” Lana displays on how critics have responded to her profession over time. Referring to claims that she’s merely a product of her file label, she sings, “I know they think that it took thousands of people / To put me together again like an experiment / Some big men behind the scenes / Sewing Frankenstein black dreams into my songs / But they’re wrong.”
By singing about “Frankenstein black dreams” — a reference to Mary Shelley’s well-known novel — Lana additionally seems to touch upon the Gothic themes that seem in her early music, particularly on Ultraviolence. The darkish, brooding love pursuits she sings about might very effectively be taken from the pages of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, one other standout from 1800s England, although Lana updates them to suit her personal creative imaginative and prescient.
In her music “Fishtail,” Lana appears to handle her semi-Victorian aesthetic once more: “Swingin’ in a nightgown underneath the old oak tree / Almost Victorian with you.” Nevertheless, she continues to push again in opposition to a reductive interpretation of her music, claiming that her former lover needs her to be sadder than she truly is. Over time, Lana has begun to let the sunshine in and transfer out of the black and into the blue. As she mentioned in her Billboard Visionary Award acceptance speech, “I feel like being happy is the ultimate goal, so I did it.”
Robert Frost
Lana sings, “Nothing gold can stay” on two very totally different tracks: Honeymoon’s “Music To Watch The Boys To” and NFR!’s “Venice Bitch.” The repetition of this lyric is only one instance of Lana referencing herself, however many have additionally identified that the road is probably going a nod to Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” By means of this poem, Frost explores the transient nature of magnificence, and Lana’s use of the road operates in a lot the identical manner. Moreover, Frost writes within the poem, “So Eden sank to grief,” an allusion to the Fall of Adam and Eve. In flip, “Nothing Gold Can Stay” engages with lots of the themes that emerge in Lana’s music, from the decay of magnificence in “Old Money” to the lack of innocence in “Gods & Monsters.”
Anna Sewell
“Black Beauty” describes a relationship with a person whose darkness threatens to eclipse his lover. Whereas many consider the title and refrain to be a reference to Jeff Buckley’s “Mojo Pin,” it might even be a reference to Anna Sewell’s 1877 novel Black Magnificence, which tells the story of a younger horse who’s overwhelmed down by a merciless proprietor earlier than ultimately retiring to the countryside.
Tennessee Williams
On “Carmen,” Lana sings that her protagonist is “relying on the kindness of strangers,” echoing Blanche’s final line in A Streetcar Named Need by Tennessee Williams. Nevertheless, whereas Blanche says that she “depends” on such kindness, Lana swaps the phrase for “rely,” leaning into the road’s ironic tinge. However like Blanche, Lana’s Carmen character “doesn’t have a problem lying to herself,” or presenting a model of actuality as she needs to see it. On the finish of the “Ride” music video, Lana returns to the road once more, saying, “I believe in the kindness of strangers.”
William Ernest Henley
Of their duet “Lust For Life,” Lana and The Weeknd interpolate William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus,” singing, “We’re the masters of our own fate / We’re the captains of our own souls.” It is smart that “invictus” means “unconquered” in Latin, as Lana and The Weeknd sing about taking cost of their very own lives. It is a notable departure from their 2015 collaboration “Prisoner,” throughout which they sing, “I’m a prisoner to my addiction.”
Anthony Burgess
Talking with Complicated about her resolution to title her sophomore album Ultraviolence, Lana mentioned, “I like that luxe sound of the word ‘ultra’ and the mean sound of the word ‘violence’ together. I think that two worlds can live in one.” Nevertheless, the time period was first coined in Anthony Burgess’ satirical black comedy A Clockwork Orange, summarizing the novel’s repulsive and gratuitous depiction of violence. Whereas it will not be clear whether or not or not Lana meant to borrow from the e-book, the Worldwide Anthony Burgess Basis expressed pleasure at her use of the phrase: “It’s fantastic that A Clockwork Orange is still providing inspiration to such diverse range of artists around the world over 50 years since its original publication,” Clare Preston-Pollitt advised MTV Information.
Hunter S. Thompson
“You’ve been trying to write a novel about your cheap thrills / You think you’re Hunter S. Thompson,” Lana sings on the Ultraviolence bonus observe “Is This Happiness?” Thompson, greatest referred to as the founding father of the gonzo journalism motion, was recognized for mixing reality and fiction. Exterior of his titillating works, he lived a really fascinating life, from setting a yacht on fireplace to operating for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. However whereas some could take into account the Thompson comparability a praise, Lana follows the assertion together with her personal opinion: “I think you’re f***ing crazy as the day’s long.”
Hearken to the most effective Lana Del Rey Songs on Apple Music and Spotify.
Uncover how phrases on the web page turn into phrases in music, and vice versa, by means of uDiscover’s Music and Literature collection. Very similar to literature, music is a medium for storytelling and world-building, and songwriters typically look to poetry, drama, and prose to encourage their work. Equally, music has gone on to form new literary kinds and even whole actions. Spanning genres and time durations, the collection celebrates the connection between these two creative varieties and digs into little-known details about a few of the most literary artists and songs.
