Lana, what have you done to me?
Lana Del Rey has made one of the most astonishing albums this decade
I still don’t really know who Norman Rockwell is, other than briefly Googling him, reading about him being an author, painter and illustrator… and that was pretty much as far as I got.
I’m not sure I care.
I think I’ve listened to Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! so many times since it was released at the end of August, the algorithms which helped Spotify identify my favourite songs of the year gave up all hope at the beginning of December 2019. Forget it. Ok, we know. You love the album so let’s just include everything. It’s dominated by her.
The vibe of this entire album drifts along with a kind of mid-to-late seventies pop/rock groove, which I find hard to explain. My wife said to me it almost feels like you’ve heard every song on this album by the time it plays. They seem delightfully recognisable in such a blissful way.
Her partnership with Jack Antonoff is a pure winner. Lana is an amazing songwriter, as is Jack, who is also an incredible producer (which he does for most of these tracks). Together, they’ve not only created certainly Lana Del Rey’s best album but one of the best I’ve come across this decade.
Strangely, before this album, I can’t even say I was a big fan of her music — just a relatively casual listener.
This album has no bad tracks. Everything has been sung by Lana, so beautifully and sultry at times but always sonically pure, blending with everything behind it and in front of it. I’ll listen to one song and cannot wait for the next, and the next, the next.
So, the tracks.
Norman Fucking Rockwell
Well, if an album is going to start with a bang lyrically, it’s with “Goddamn, man-child, you fucked me so good that I almost said ‘I love you’”.
But almost. Ultimately, the exclamation is that he put her through shit and then over and over, her riff “….as you colour me blue, blue, blue, blue….”
Is she ‘happy’ in blue, a cross-reference to her future love in the third track Venice Bitch…..a Norman Rockwell piece painted in blue?
Answer: No.
Mariners Apartment Complex
Lana is helping. “Maybe I could save you from your sins, So kiss the sky and whisper to Jesus. My, my, my, you found this, you need this. Take a deep breath, baby, let me in….”
Lana’s struggled in the past and fucked up but found hope. And now, for this person, “just take my hand…. I’m your man.” She is the guide for someone who needs encouragement — someone who is struggling.
“Take in the sweetness, you want this you need this….are you ready for it?”
Venice Bitch
I’ll first come out and say: this is the shortest 9 and a half minute song I’ve ever listened to.
Lyrically, it’s pretty straightforward (though I understand it contains a lot of references or allusions to previous Lana songs). It’s the only one that actually refers to Norman Rockwell. “Paint me happy in blue, Norman Rockwell.”
Ultimately it’s a love song. “You write, I tour, we make it work, You’re beautiful and I’m insane… Oh God, miss you on my lips…It’s me, your little Venice bitch”.
Venice bitch being an obvious play on Venice Beach.
I love the whirly, serious psychedelic vibes over the last portion of the song…. repeatedly, “If you weren’t mine, I’d be…jealous of your love”….
Fuck it I love you
Where do I begin?
California is just a state of mind? Well, if you let it. “It turns out everywhere you go‚ you take yourself‚ that’s not a lie….”
“I used to shoot up my veins in neon”. … “If I wasn’t so fucked up, I think I’d fuck you all the time”.
This song reflects a lot of the dark issues in Lana Del Rey’s past. Drug and alcohol addiction, relationship issues, difficulties adjusting to change. She has relationship issues as well…errr, clearly. “Baby‚ wish that you would hold me or just say that you were mine. But it’s killing me slowly…”
“Dream a little dream of me” she sings, which suits the song, the album and her.
It’s hard to figure out where she will end up next.
Doin’ Time
This 1990’s Sublime cover is my least favorite song on the album (though commercially most successful). But that’s practically irrelevant.
It’s not her song but I suppose it kind of weirdly suits her and it is distinctly suited for the summer, with another California-esque feel. A breezy feeling all around.
Love Song
As the name states, it’s a love song.
“Is it safe, is it safe to just be who we are?” “The taste, the touch, the way we love it all comes down to this our love song….” “Spill my clothes on the floor of your new car.”
Lana is actually in love and wants to express it. Go figure.
Cinnamon Girl
“You try to push me out but I just find my way back in.”
She finds her way back in but it is all messed up and conflicted. “If you hold me without hurting me, you’ll be the first whoever did.”… She wants love but gets pain.
It’s a sort of simple song. But not so simple. Yes, it is also beautiful.
How to Disappear
This has a weird, kind of funky-without-being funky feeling. It is sort of simple ….she’s met a guy in NY and has what sounds like a pretty fucked up relationship (“I know he’s in over his head”) to the extent that he may have to “forget the things they fear.” So… “This is how to disappear”.
So….. she’s ended up in, well, California. The sun. The movie stars. Where else? So. “Think about those years…. as I whisper in your ears…I’m always gone to be right here.”
And that’s it.
California
Based on the title, it must be easy from the beginning if you’re wondering what this song is about. “California”.
But it’s not. It’s a song about wanting a lover to come back to California.
It kills me. The very opening. “You don’t ever have to be stronger than you really are, when you’re lying in my…… (deliberate stop)….. arms”. Her vocal here is as beautiful as I’ve ever heard.
Her lure. She’ll pick him up, she will hit him up, she will do what he ever wants, she’ll have a party, she will dance to dawn and pick up his liquor from the top shelf.
“This is crazy love….. if you come back to California, you should just hit me up.”
It has less to do with California and more to do with her desperation for him to come back.
The Next Best American Record
Another love song.
Her musical lover and she are convinced/obsessed they can just go to bed and not worry about writing the next American record — they simply can — so they can just go out and party on the beach. “He was as cool as heck” (Heck?!)
“We put Eagles down in Malibu” (both another California reference and link to the incredibly late-1970’s influence over this album).
“Ultimately, whatever is wrong tonight, I just want to party with you — I’m taking off my bathing suit.” “All the roads lead to you.”
He makes her feel… wanted.
Because it’s something she never knew.
The greatest
So Lana steps back and takes it all in. And it’s overwhelming. She misses it all.
Things have changed.
It’s one of the most uplifting sounding songs on the album. But it is clear — as for Lana, it isn’t. “I’m facing the greatest, the greatest loss of them all.”
“The culture is lit and if this is it, then I had a ball…I guess I’m signing off after all. … I guess that I’m burned out after all…. life on Mars ain’t just a song”.
She’s fed up with everything.
So I guess the greatest isn’t great. But “The greatest” is the greatest track on the album.
Bartender
And then she’s just trying to keep her love alive…. “With my bartender, hold me all night”. Strikingly unusual, with hints of her sobriety: “Baby remember, I’m not drinking wine, but that Cherry Coke you serve is fine”.
The song drips California. Wine is flowing with Bacardi.
Happiness is a Butterfly?
You wouldn’t get it from an initial listen of this album, and no, not from this song, which is probably as dark as Lana gets. “Happiness is a butterfly, try to catch it, like, every night, it escapes from my hands into moonlight…”
“If he’s a serial killer, then what’s the worst? That can happen to a girl who’s already hurt? I’m already hurt.”
It’s as grim as you can get. It’s an interesting track, because it is just her and Jack Antonoff on piano, and it completely blends into the next track.
Happiness is a butterfly…. and hope is a dangerous thing. She still has both.
hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have — but I have it
The last song. Godddddddddddddd. Jack Antonoff’s solo piano with her solo singing, about love, religion, family, alcoholism, relationships. Bare. If I keep saying beautiful, then kill me. And Jack’s piano is just so… him. I’ve heard a lot of his music, and you may not notice it’s him, but once you know it, you instantly recognise him. Just go back to the beginning of the album and listen again.
So notwithstanding every single song preceding this one, the coda here is that when it comes to hope: “I have it.”
Norman Fucking Rockwell. Lana Del Rey.
It’s easily my album of 2019. I have no idea where it would rank on a “Best of the 2010's” list. I don’t care.
Just turn the radio on and dance to a pop song.
“Fuck it I love you.”
