“Fuck it I love you”: Feminine Impulse in the Music of Lana Del Rey
part 1 of a new series
I was a really impulsive kid. I scribbled, in crayon, on my bedside table for fun, and spoke a little too much whenever I was excited about something. I performed makeshift musicals with my friends at recess and pocketed a notebook of ranked crushes, which I’d eagerly share with anyone foolish enough to ask me how I was. One time, I got sent to the principal’s office for getting in a heated debate about religion with the morning bus driver. I was 6.
And that didn’t go too well. So now, I’m a chronic overthinker. I’m very scared, at all times, of seeming thoughtless, or accidentally hurting someone’s feelings with my word choice or my tone. So I’m shy. I avoid confrontation. And I make bad, standoffish first impressions.
Because I don’t want to seem impulsive again. And I don’t want to be obnoxious. I’m afraid of messing up, seeming flighty, emotional, or unreliable. Impulsive girls are trainwrecks — the brunt of an ever-unfolding joke that the whole world seems in on.
The flipside of this coin, of course, is that I’m not very in touch with my impulses these days! When I’m asked to make decisions, I waffle aimlessly for hours, not because I’m trying to make matters difficult , but because I truly and honestly don’t often know what I want. And even when I do have a gut reaction, a real desire to have or experience something when asked…I quiet that, and mull it over. I doubt whether I’m really sure. Impulsive girls are attention-seeking — The things they want are inconvenient.
I’m not sure exactly where these ideas came from — I try not to generalize where it isn’t due, and I genuinely don’t know if these stereotypes are as widespread as my own anxieties would have me believe. Certainly it’s “good” to be a free spirit, right? To be the manic pixie or the party girl? Even by patriarchal standards, there seems to be room for a spontaneous dreamgirl, a hedonist who happens to be pretty. But whose impulses actually fit that mold? Impulsive girls are volatile commodities — We only want them sometimes.
Enter Lana Del Rey.
Baby I’ll be like a wildflower / I live on sheer willpower
Lana’s music has echoed through my life for over a decade now, like a “hide and seek” chant in an empty mall. I’ve tried to evade the undeniable charm of her songs since they first hit the iTunes store, but my best efforts have failed me. Did I really have a choice? “Video Games” came out when I was 13. I was ready to project my angst and obsession onto anything that felt true.
And damn if that song wasn’t true, with its homestyle video and mournful refrain. It birthed a generation of steel-toed sadgirls, in pleated skirts and melting mascara. Those of us who joined those ranks love to look back on that era and make fun of ourselves, full of affection and shame. But I don’t think I ever stopped being the kind of person who wanted my sadness to turn heads. I’ve just dressed it up in bigger boots and quieter soliloquies.
Still, it’s uncomfortable to remember the things I felt at that time, boiling so full of hatred for anyone who seemed to have life more “together” than I did. I didn’t like listening to music by pretty girls, and I told myself that it was because 1) I wasn’t one of them and as such 2) nothing they had to say could possibly be relatable to me. But for some reason, Lana — so certain of her own beauty and desirability — was an exception. I might have put Spotify on private when I played her songs on repeat, but it didn’t dull the truth.
This speaks to one fundamental element of her music: Its fantastical, escapist air. Songs like “Young and Beautiful” were cathartic to me, though I didn’t agree with their sentiment in my day-to-day life. But they were big enough for me to step wholly into, ready to imagine a life that held more. Many of us loved that song, not because it felt alienatingly vain, but it because it invited us to participate in vanity, no matter who we were — And who among us can truly say we loved how we looked at 13?
Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?
When I think of Lana Del Rey’s music, I think of putting makeup on in front of a dressing room mirror. Veiling myself in glamour, and envisioning new worlds. It’s its own kind of witchcraft, really, to wake up and decide who you are going to be. And Lana does this constantly— song by song, album by album, day by day. Whether she’s eating ice cream with a mafioso on a boardwalk or dipping her toes into hippie-Christianity, she’s right there in the center of that moment, adorned with its tropes. Each song is like a portal to a world with its own set of rules. Some of these rules have attracted negative reactions, from those who view art as prescriptive. “Here, we must cater to men to gain power and perspective” or “Here, drugs rule the show”.
But, then again, there are always these two: “Anyone can be beautiful” and “impulse is no longer a vice.”
i: the trainwreck
Growing up with an alcoholic dad meant the fear of trainwreck-itis was baked into my blood. I once swore I’d never drink, imagining a world of smelly potions and screaming matches. I grew up and changed my mind, but the fear of morphing into him has never escaped me. Am I being too loud right now? What do people think of me? Am I ugly? Am I evil?
Got my little red party dress on / Everybody knows that I’m a mess / I’m crazy
When Lana sings about partying, it’s always loaded with impulse and vice. She was sent away to boarding school as a teen, to rehabilitate an alcohol addiction and spend time away from home. Those days live on, full of betrayal and pain, in her earliest work — But she’s revisited them more recently, too, on tracks like “Fingertips”.
What the fuck’s wrong in your head to send me away, never to come back?
The rich autobiography of these recent works was a shock to some fans. But the truth is, Lana has been exorcizing these same demons through playful, poppier fare for some time. Who is the trainwreck narrator of “Cruel World” if not her teenage self, or some notion of who she was in the eyes of her judges? And it’s an open secret that the following song, “Ultraviolence”, is dedicated to Jim Beam bourbon, rather than the abusive lover it seems to describe.
Jim raised me up / He hurt me but it felt like true love
But these are both fan favorites, and undeniably sexy songs…Not in spite of this harsh, self-destructive content, but because of it. There’s a sense, when you sing along, that you’re giving into all your impulses and releasing all your inhibitions. For Lana, the key emotional reference is alcohol. But for listeners, this might be whatever forbidden craving we’re nursing at night. And that’s often a lost lover, a quit job, or a more abstract escape. It’s no wonder that this music has been so embraced by queer fans, told constantly that our desires are dangerous or shrouded in taboo.
I see a lot of jokes online about “letting the intrusive thoughts win” . These jokes have attracted some critique, for referencing a pretty debilitating OCD symptom, which shouldn’t be downplayed. But honestly…I get what’s being poked at even in the goofier jokes. There’s something liberating about screaming our worst fears from the rooftops, and creating fictional spaces where we can let them overtake us. Self-destruction is the last urge I want to give into on the daily, but singing about it scratches a powerful itch for me. I’m able to step into these songs like costumes, wearing the mantle of carelessness proudly when actually? I probably care about far too many things far too much.
And I find it freeing — screaming at the top of my lungs that I crave self destruction, even if I don’t mean it. It smells of shadow work: naming the person I’m most scared of becoming and diving head first into that mask. And it throbs at the heart of many a great pop song, but is particularly loud when it comes from Lana.
For me, it’s the ever-present fear of turning into my father, of being the kind of person who harms those I love.
For Lana, it’s the specter of her past self, the shuddering echoes of a distant rock bottom.
No one’s gonna take my soul away / I’m livin’ like Jim Morrison / Headed towards a fucked up holiday
Female self-destruction is regarded as its own distinct vice, all the more vicious and embarrassing than its masculine counterpart. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll are all part of the classic “auteur” package, ugly but necessary, if a man is to face his darkest demons in the name of art. When women act in excess, it’s viewed as pure gratuity — if you don’t view women as legitimate artistic agents, you don’t have to burden their vices with purpose.
Female addiction is “messy”. Male addiction is “dangerous”.
By name-checking Jim Morrison specifically in 2012’s “Gods and Monsters”, Lana immediately evokes a sense of danger. Morrison’s penchant for partying exceeded even the norm of his scene, and ended up causing his infamous demise. By alluding to his life in her lyrics, Lana is announcing that she can out-carouse the best of them, even with deadly consequences. And she wants this lifestyle to sound as dire and dangerous as it is, surpassing the naive connotations of a “girl gone wild”. She says she’s doing all of this to guard her soul. She’s a martyr for her art.
In later years, she manages to flip her writing’s focus to sobriety while still maintaining the core character we all know as Lana. And that, I think, is where her greatest genius lies. If you thought Lana Del Rey was all death and booze and parties, you were wrong. If you thought Lana Del Rey was more debauchery than disposition, you weren’t reading past the first page.
She made this shift intentionally on 2017’s Lust for Life, the title an intentional foil to that of her nihilistic debut album. On the final track, “Get Free”, she journeys “out of the black / into the blue”, extolling the value of change and epiphany, a life that prioritizes survival. This time, she namechecks Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston — dedicating the song to other artists who’ve struggled with addiction, but this time intentionally alluding to other women.
And all my birds of paradise / Who never got to fly at night / ‘Cause they were caught up in the dance
And now, on her most recent albums, playful flirtation through a sober lens abounds. Perhaps it’s the real Lizzy Grant coming through — and certainly she doles more in memoir now than ever. But maybe, just maybe, this is that same self-destructive character embarking on her own journey. A healing process that worked its magic from the outside-in, donating its vices to a character before escaping them forever.
I bought me a truck in the middle of the night / It'll buy me a year if I play my cards right…
…Baby, remember, I’m not drinking wine / But that cherry coke you serve is fine / And our love’s sweet enough on the vine
And even here, ever-present, there’s the sense that she’s impulsive — buying a truck after midnight, willing to risk anything to step, wholeheartedly, into a new romance. And it’s not a fundamental flaw or embarrassing quirk: it’s the very fulcrum that balances her charm.
Thank you to everyone who’s tuning in! I’m envisioning more installments like this, though I’ve got a few other ideas on the brain too.
I finally moved away from my crappy landlord situation, which feels unspeakably awesome. It’s amazing how much easier it is to clear my head, now that I live further away from my workplace. I feel more like myself here, and am excited to see what other changes that brings…
I’m back to publishing weekly! Until the next one: Embrace your shadow. Or at least your inner femme fatale.
Clare