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Americunt

Lana Del Rey | Norman Fucking Rockwell! | August 30th, 2019

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1 hour ago, Americunt said:

I think the only one that I find completely cryptic is "Bartender". The rest seem pretty straightforward.

 

Norman Fucking Rockwell - A dude who thinks he's a crazy talented artist actually isn't and refuses to acknowledge that.

Mariners Apartment Complex - We know the story of this one, with an unnamed partner telling Lana he liked her because she was fucked up like him and her response being that she was actually doing pretty well and didn't feel kinship like that.

Venice Bitch - All about the bombast and iconoclast of a relationship that feels like the archetype of the American Dream, even though it isn't and she realizes that.

Fuck It I Love You - Lana examining the relationship she has with herself via projection on a faceless lover. The first verse is all about her journey to self-improvement and the realization that all the performative things she does to be "empowered" might not really be helping. She doesn't like this revelation, so she seeks out her old comfort: someone who will love her. The chorus is her trying to throw herself at this person for comfort and begging them to respond in kind. They don't. The second verse is her projecting hard and trying to understand why the relationship didn't work out, even though she and this person had so much in common personally, which led her to expect them to think like she does. The outro is her ruminating on that idea and kinda letting her thoughts go wild.

Doin' Time - Obviously, she didn't write this one, but I guess you could see the adapted lyrics as also being about her relationship with herself, which the video reinforces. For example, "Me and my girl got this relationship, I love her so bad, but she treats me like shit" would be her talking about herself in a depersonalized way.

Love Song - Feels a little like a continuation from the mental state she was left in at the end of FIILY. She's moved on and is finally in a relationship that feels stable. It's safe and loving in a way she's rarely felt. It kind of freaks her out, but she just has to adapt to the sound of a new type of love song.

Cinnamon Girl - Lots of juxtaposition between the good and bad relationship songs so far. This is kind of the alternate path from the end of FIILY, where she went back to this emotionally misconfigured relationship and let it continue because she was so desperate for love. She's still pining for it to be right, but is ultimately settling into a passive role, because she knows her drug-addled lover is never going to be the tender partner she wants.

How to Disappear - A story song about the way her life progresses in these two alternate paths. The first verse is the destructive path from Cinnamon Girl/FIILY and the second one could be argued as the safer and more stable path from Love Song. The final verse is either her in the future looking back at all of this or one of the versions of her looking towards the future and hoping. This song conjoins the paths and shows that despite the different bumps in the road she may experience, she's still aiming for the same goal: to disappear, either into a relationship (on the bad path) or from public life (on the good path).

California - I think we can say pretty definitively that this is about her ex, Barrie James O'Neill. She checks up on him via a friend, who says he's not doing well, which leads her to reminisce about the good times they had and how she now wants to rekindle what they had, because she's tried the LA lifestyle and it's not suiting her. I also think the affectation of slurring during the chorus is supposed to imply that she's drinking.

The Next Best American Record - This could be argued as another Barrie song and maybe a more direct reminiscence. They were so in love and so into each other, connecting physically, spiritually, musically. She's wiped out all the negative aspects of the song, in comparison to the demo version. It's just the happy memories, without any of the bad times in there. Very much a reverie, in context.

The Greatest - She acknowledges that giving up on Barrie is probably the biggest mistake she ever made and now that other parts of her life seem to be crumbling, she realizes how important he was. It plays around with pathetic fallacy and the metaphysical conceit of an apocalyptic future, mirroring her internal apocalypse. The end of the song is a recognition that her mistakes are set in stone and has to live with the state of the world, the state of music and the state of herself.

Bartender - Reading through the lyrics now, I think I'm beginning to understand this. She's spending a lot of time at these uppercrust parties in Laurel Canyon and meets someone new, who lets her feel like she's having fun again. The rest of the song is her efforts to begin a secret double-life with this person. They live a fair distance from the main part of her life, but close enough that she can visit when she wants. She buys a trashed truck on the cheap so the paparazzi don't catch her in the act of visiting the guy. As for the title metaphor, she feels a kind of addiction to the guy because he gives her mental release, but at the same time, she knows what addiction feels like and doesn't want to go down that road again, so she keeps it casual. The song really just describes that relationship and doesn't make any comment on progression. It's purely "I'm having fun with this guy in private and that's all you need to know".

Happiness is a Butterfly - A combination of a story song and a generalized self-empowerment song. She's romantically involved with someone who's giving her mixed signals, but she still feels satisfied with her career, her friends and her fans, all of which she believes are important. The chorus makes this song the antithesis of Cinnamon Girl (which is passive to the extreme) because she actively calls this guy out on how much of a douchebag he's being. She recognizes that he's hurt in some ways, much like she is (which is a callback to Fuck It I Love You, in that she recognizes the same thing in that relationship and didn't know how to act on it), but she gives him the ultimatum that if the relationship is going to continue, he needs to let his emotional walls come down. The rest of the song is her reinforcing that.

Hope is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have - But I Have It - Another song examining her relationship with herself. She explains her personal history and how that caused her problems with the manic way she treats love of both others and herself. A lot of the anecdotes are from her personal life, but they're generally explainable enough.

Going to listen to the album thinking this through now with your words. You're a gem

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2 hours ago, Americunt said:

I think the only one that I find completely cryptic is "Bartender". The rest seem pretty straightforward.

 

Norman Fucking Rockwell - A dude who thinks he's a crazy talented artist actually isn't and refuses to acknowledge that.

Mariners Apartment Complex - We know the story of this one, with an unnamed partner telling Lana he liked her because she was fucked up like him and her response being that she was actually doing pretty well and didn't feel kinship like that.

Venice Bitch - All about the bombast and iconoclast of a relationship that feels like the archetype of the American Dream, even though it isn't and she realizes that.

Fuck It I Love You - Lana examining the relationship she has with herself via projection on a faceless lover. The first verse is all about her journey to self-improvement and the realization that all the performative things she does to be "empowered" might not really be helping. She doesn't like this revelation, so she seeks out her old comfort: someone who will love her. The chorus is her trying to throw herself at this person for comfort and begging them to respond in kind. They don't. The second verse is her projecting hard and trying to understand why the relationship didn't work out, even though she and this person had so much in common personally, which led her to expect them to think like she does. The outro is her ruminating on that idea and kinda letting her thoughts go wild.

Doin' Time - Obviously, she didn't write this one, but I guess you could see the adapted lyrics as also being about her relationship with herself, which the video reinforces. For example, "Me and my girl got this relationship, I love her so bad, but she treats me like shit" would be her talking about herself in a depersonalized way.

Love Song - Feels a little like a continuation from the mental state she was left in at the end of FIILY. She's moved on and is finally in a relationship that feels stable. It's safe and loving in a way she's rarely felt. It kind of freaks her out, but she just has to adapt to the sound of a new type of love song.

Cinnamon Girl - Lots of juxtaposition between the good and bad relationship songs so far. This is kind of the alternate path from the end of FIILY, where she went back to this emotionally misconfigured relationship and let it continue because she was so desperate for love. She's still pining for it to be right, but is ultimately settling into a passive role, because she knows her drug-addled lover is never going to be the tender partner she wants.

How to Disappear - A story song about the way her life progresses in these two alternate paths. The first verse is the destructive path from Cinnamon Girl/FIILY and the second one could be argued as the safer and more stable path from Love Song. The final verse is either her in the future looking back at all of this or one of the versions of her looking towards the future and hoping. This song conjoins the paths and shows that despite the different bumps in the road she may experience, she's still aiming for the same goal: to disappear, either into a relationship (on the bad path) or from public life (on the good path).

California - I think we can say pretty definitively that this is about her ex, Barrie James O'Neill. She checks up on him via a friend, who says he's not doing well, which leads her to reminisce about the good times they had and how she now wants to rekindle what they had, because she's tried the LA lifestyle and it's not suiting her. I also think the affectation of slurring during the chorus is supposed to imply that she's drinking.

The Next Best American Record - This could be argued as another Barrie song and maybe a more direct reminiscence. They were so in love and so into each other, connecting physically, spiritually, musically. She's wiped out all the negative aspects of the song, in comparison to the demo version. It's just the happy memories, without any of the bad times in there. Very much a reverie, in context.

The Greatest - She acknowledges that giving up on Barrie is probably the biggest mistake she ever made and now that other parts of her life seem to be crumbling, she realizes how important he was. It plays around with pathetic fallacy and the metaphysical conceit of an apocalyptic future, mirroring her internal apocalypse. The end of the song is a recognition that her mistakes are set in stone and has to live with the state of the world, the state of music and the state of herself.

Bartender - Reading through the lyrics now, I think I'm beginning to understand this. She's spending a lot of time at these uppercrust parties in Laurel Canyon and meets someone new, who lets her feel like she's having fun again. The rest of the song is her efforts to begin a secret double-life with this person. They live a fair distance from the main part of her life, but close enough that she can visit when she wants. She buys a trashed truck on the cheap so the paparazzi don't catch her in the act of visiting the guy. As for the title metaphor, she feels a kind of addiction to the guy because he gives her mental release, but at the same time, she knows what addiction feels like and doesn't want to go down that road again, so she keeps it casual. The song really just describes that relationship and doesn't make any comment on progression. It's purely "I'm having fun with this guy in private and that's all you need to know".

Happiness is a Butterfly - A combination of a story song and a generalized self-empowerment song. She's romantically involved with someone who's giving her mixed signals, but she still feels satisfied with her career, her friends and her fans, all of which she believes are important. The chorus makes this song the antithesis of Cinnamon Girl (which is passive to the extreme) because she actively calls this guy out on how much of a douchebag he's being. She recognizes that he's hurt in some ways, much like she is (which is a callback to Fuck It I Love You, in that she recognizes the same thing in that relationship and didn't know how to act on it), but she gives him the ultimatum that if the relationship is going to continue, he needs to let his emotional walls come down. The rest of the song is her reinforcing that.

Hope is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have - But I Have It - Another song examining her relationship with herself. She explains her personal history and how that caused her problems with the manic way she treats love of both others and herself. A lot of the anecdotes are from her personal life, but they're generally explainable enough.

omg this is a great analysis! thank you so much cry1 

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I don't understand how it will debut at top 5. dead4 I've seen the album in maaany viral tweets the last week, some of them had 100k plus likes. Do the fuckin gays support albums just by tweeting about them nowadays?

dead4 

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On 9/1/2019 at 8:32 PM, Madame X said:

I don't understand how it will debut at top 5. dead4 I've seen the album in maaany viral tweets the last week, some of them had 100k plus likes. Do the fuckin gays support albums just by tweeting about them nowadays?

dead4 

Yes jj4 

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1 hour ago, Liam said:

I don't get the hate for TNBAR at all 

Same! I don't like some of the new lyrics like "we were just that good, it was just that good" and "Topanga's hot tonight, I'm taking off my bathing suit" but I really love it overall

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3 hours ago, Liam said:

I don't get the hate for TNBAR at all 

I think the demo had cool ideas (that would've fit thematically with the album too) but she replaced the chorus with a bunch of her usual tropes jj4 that and the fact that the production wasn't really revamped from the demo either, so it kinda came off as an overthought tbh! that being said, I do like it but it's just not a fave! jj2

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11 hours ago, Hunty Bear said:

I think the demo had cool ideas (that would've fit thematically with the album too) but she replaced the chorus with a bunch of her usual tropes jj4 that and the fact that the production wasn't really revamped from the demo either, so it kinda came off as an overthought tbh! that being said, I do like it but it's just not a fave! jj2

I can see that now. TBNAR gives me more LFL vibes than NFR! but as an individual song I rank it at least mid-tier on the album

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12 hours ago, Liam said:

I can see that now. TBNAR gives me more LFL vibes than NFR! but as an individual song I rank it at least mid-tier on the album

I do think that the final TNBAR is definitely better than its demo though, because I just gave the demo a spin and the vocals were truly rough at the parts that she changed dead2 it's weirdly fitting for both eras, but I guess I'm glad that it made it onto NFR at the end

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10 minutes ago, Urbanov said:

Happiness Is A Butterfly reminds me of Writer In The Dark by Lorde jj3 

speaking of HIAB, is there anyone else who isn't a fan of the whole "serial killer" line? not super into the hamfisted reference to her unreleased tbh, it feels kinda clunky bebe1 

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2 minutes ago, Hunty Bear said:

speaking of HIAB, is there anyone else who isn't a fan of the whole "serial killer" line? not super into the hamfisted reference to her unreleased tbh, it feels kinda clunky bebe1 

For me it’s “don’t be a jerk don’t call me a taxi” that revokes “I love you til you call the cops on me” hence why I have this weird feeling dead2dead2dead2 idk why 

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On 9/11/2019 at 12:16 AM, Madame X said:

"Bartender" chorus reminds me of "White Mustang".

 

Actually i made da mistake, the chorus of "The Next Best American Record" reminds me of "White Munstang", not the "Bartender" one. I wanna sing "it's fucking hot, hot" when i listen to it.

jj4 

 

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