(Not to mention “white Pontiac heaven,” “heaven in your eyes,” “heaven’s door,” “a match made in heaven,” “give heaven a try,” “heaven is a place on Earth.”)Įlvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, Hunter S. When he comes, tell me that you’ll let him in, “You talk lots about God / Freedom comes from the call / But that’s not what this bitch wants / Not what I want at all” (“Money Power Glory”). Other people’s Gods? “Got your bible, got your gun / And you like to party and have fun” (“Cruel World”). “In the name of higher consciousness / I let the best man I knew go,” Lana admits in “Pawn Shop Blues,” but she’s not into God, per se: “I don’t really wanna know what’s good for me / ‘God’s dead,’ I said / ‘Baby, that’s alright with me’” (“Gods & Monsters”). Let’s stay in: “I feel so alone on a Friday night / Can you make it feel like home, if I tell you you’re mine.” Let’s go out: “We get down every Friday night / Dancing and grinding in the pale moonlight.”

He appears as a ghost in Tropico, and in “American,” she sings: “Elvis is the best, hell yes / Honey, put on that party dress.” In an unreleasd song called “Elvis,” she says: “Elvis, where are you when I need you most? / White comp sequin jumpsuit ghost / Pick me up and make a toast.” Lana might liken herself to Priscilla Presley looks-wise, but is Elvis all the way. If Lana loves you, she’ll say you have a “mind like a diamond.” She does it in both “Carmen” and “JFK.” Otherwise, she’s referring to her jewels, as in “Raise Me Up: “Putting crystals on my neck / Lifting my feet off the ground” “Cola”: “Treat me really niceys / Decorate my neck / Diamantes ices” “Body Electric”: “Whitman is my daddy, Monaco’s my mother / Diamonds are my bestest friend” and so coyly in “National Anthem”: “Um, do you think you’ll buy me lots of diamonds?” She’s seaside royalty – in “Off To The Races,” “I’m your little harlot, starlet, Queen of Coney Island / Raising hell all over town” and in “Carmen,” she’s “Eatin’ soft ice cream / Coney Island queen” – who maybe lives on Neptune Avenue in “Mermaid Motel”: “Maybe we could go to Coney Island / Maybe I could sing the National Anthem … Walk back to where we live in my motel on Neptune Avenue.”

Chola (see: Tropico), it’s channeling 1950s beauty queens: “Done my hair up real big / Beauty-queen style,” says “Summertime Sadness.” Nostalgia for the days of pageants past: “Ribbons in our hair and our eyes gleamed mean / A freshman generation of degenerate beauty queens,” in “That’s What Makes Us Girls.” It’s almost always an imaginary post: “I’m going back to Arbor Dean / Where when I was a beauty queen,” she sings in “Brite Eyes.” As far as we can tell, Arbor Dean does not exist. In “Radio,” she’s embracing the American Dream by achieving those coveted radio spins: “American dreams came true somehow / I swore I’d chase ‘em till I was dead.” She’s even got the Bruce Springsteen thing down: “We were two kids just trying to get out / Livin’ on the dark side of the American dream.” (And in “Flipside”: “You got me all dressed up tonight / Springsteen on the radio.”) “I fall asleep in an American flag,” Lana sings in “Cola.” She’s a True Patriot, but without all that boring political stuff. Here’s a cheat sheet, organized alphabetically, of all the important things in the Lanaverse. Tropes repeat themselves, making it fairly easy to become a Del Rey scholar if you’re willing to put the time in. But if you’re sticking just to the music, there’s actually a lot of overlap between the many songs Del Rey has voluntarily ( and involuntarily!) released over the past few years. “Outside of her songs, Del Rey neither offers explanations as to what is real in them, nor explains how her real life birthed the doomed bombshell in her music,” wrote Billboard this week about Lana Del Rey and her new album, Ultraviolence.

Pawn shop blues lyrics lana del rey