A modern day woman with a weak Constitution
-- Personal Notes Only --
1. Norman Fucking Rockwell 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
"Goddamn man child, you fucked me so good that I almost said I love you"
"Why wait for the best when I could have you"
The moment she uttered the word "goddamn" you already know this album is about to be more than just good. The mixture of her love, devestation, anger, ephuoira and yet hope, is more than just some venting against man child. To some extent it also mirrors my own androphobia, yes this song got me fucked up.
2. Mariners Apartment Complex 🌟🌟🌟🌟
"You lose your way, just take my hand You're lost at sea, then I'll command your boat to me again Don't look too far, right where you are, that's where I am I'm your man"
If someone writes "I will be your sailor" I swear I would cringe so hard, but "I am your man" seems like a statement. Stripped away from her Lolita period, Lana puts more depth in to a relationship and proves those claim her to be "anti-feminist" dead wrong.
3. Venice Bitch 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
"Fear fun, fear love, fresh out of fucks forever"
"You're in the yard, I light the fire And as the summer fades away, Nothing gold can stay"
This song is a modern manifestation of me as a millennial, a lot of us do fear fun, fear love, instead we say fuck everything because we are cooler than everything. Deep down, is it just the fear that nothing gold would stay, and we all wind up growing up, growing apart and mundane? But is mundane so bad if we find the person to be just ordinary with? From herion, white mustang, Gods and Monsters, now picturing herself on the stoop with the neighborhood kids, it is probably consistent with her growth in music.
4. Fuck it I love you 🌟🌟🌟🌟
“I moved to California, but it's just a state of mind Turns out everywhere you go You take yourself, that's not a lie"
When I first heard this one I was in California, thinking about moving to California. She said it, and I agree, California is just a state of mind, so I make my own sanctuary at home, your mind is your own California art deco. If you think of free, love and youth, you can make anywhere California. All these years, me and many of my friends are striving to live freely, we cried and laughed, we sighed and surrendered, we fought and left things behind, but at the end of the day, living free is also just a state of mind.
She treats California like a conceptual promised land, and so do I, so it is.
5. Doin' Time 🌟🌟🌟
“My burning sun will someday rise”
This is one of my less favriote tracks in this album, it's still good, I guess I just didn't vibe with it or I need more time to get into it.
Still, "my burning sun will someday rise" can be those sentences I would carve inside of my locker or something, just saying.
6.Love Song 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
"Oh, be my once in a lifetime Lying on your chest In my party dress I'm a fucking mess, but I
Oh, thanks for the high life Baby, you's the best Passed the test and yes Now I'm here with you and I"
I don't know how many people cried over this track, like someone told me, we all feel like 100 until we fell in love, no matter how many times Lizzo tell you "I'm feeling good", you keeps questioning yourself why. Feeling like a mess, feeling all the highs and lows, even if he/she leaves, still thankful for the high life they bring into you. It is natural to yearn for the old love, it is natural to think about the could've been, it doesn't make you weak, just human.
Take pride in loving you, take pride in the blues.
7. Cinnamon Girl 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
"There's things I wanna talk about, but better not to give Like if you hold me without hurting me You'll be the first who ever did"
I am obssessed with the opening, even moren than the chorus. This track reminds of old Lana Del Rey, sad to the core and take pride in her sadness. I always think it takes courage to show your weakness and sadness to the world, different from the "sad boy/girl" trend, she also adds romantic to it, which makes the sadness almost desiring.
The humming in the chorus is like staring at the sun, watching it moves as time passes by. Her voice here is almost huanting, kind of like whispering, it is a love poetry meant just for oneself.
8. How to Disappear 🌟🌟🌟
"Now it's been years since I left New York I got a key and two cats in the yard A California sun and the movie stars"
It is safe to say this album is like a commerical for Cali. She settled down, she had cats and a yard, saying "I'm always going to be right here, no one's going anywhere."
9. California 🌟🌟🌟🌟
"You're scared to win, scared to lose I've heard the war was over if you really choose The one in and around you"
"If you come back to California You should just hit me up"
In this ultra romantic lovers-fall-apart, we hope the next time they reunite, it's in California, where he is not scared, not pretending any more, where she would say the things she wanna say.
Maybe after years, we can be who we really are, we can dance, drink and do whatever just to keep us warm like kids.
10. The Next Best American Record 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
"Whatever's on tonight, I just wanna party with you"
"It's you, all the roads lead to you"
This is the very first track I turned to when the album came out. Underneath such an ambitious title, is yet another love story discussing "lovers' minds at war". When her baby was dancing under her architecture, he was subjected to her love. There's her symbolic glamor again, I think from this track, she started the transiftion from "troubled people attempting to navigate the mess of love" to navigate the mess of American and the mess of this century. It's easy for someone with 70s in spirit and 90s in the frame of mind to look backwards and aspiring to the luxry of the so-called golden times, but it's safe to say Lana Del Rey did not restrict herself to looking back the way she did in the first couple of albums. On the contray, she pointed out the promising of future by portraying love, life and poetry, this is what this genaration needs.
11. The Greatest 🌟🌟🌟🌟
"I want shit to feel just like it used to And, baby, I was doing nothing the most of all"
"Hawaii just missed a fireball LA's in flames, it's getting hot Kanye West is blond and gone Life on Mars ain't just a song"
As a concious artist living in the current world, it is hard not to have the fear that we are experiencing the greatest loss of it all. She was not mad, despite the power of staying mad in this century, she is sad yet is presenting love, peace and hope in front of us, like she did in "Coachella - Woodstock in my mind ". Here she sings like a prayer, hopefully guiding the generation into light. Before the world is set in flames, we all need a wake up call.
12. Bartender 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
"Crosby, Stills and Nash is playing Wine is flowing with Bacardi"
"I bought me a truck in the middle of the night It'll buy me a year if I play my cards right"
"I bought me a truck in the middle of the night 60 MPH on PCH drive"
Starting with a picture of her typical summer feast, ended with driving down the pacific highway, the romantic summer story is going to last me all year long. There is wine, there is poetry, there is love and youth, she was living freely with her beloved bartender while writing down an endless summer story.
13. Happiness is a Butterfuly 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
"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?"
In this romanticized heart broken story, she knows the ending is hopeless but like what's said in the next track, she still has hope. The "giving it all for love", the "what's the worst could happen", is a praise to a girl's love and an indication of trappings of masculinity.
Nevertheless, when you watch Lana Del Rey and her girlfriends swinging to the music in an old TV screen, the beauty of heartbroken and sensitivity is everlasting in art.
14. Hope Is A Dangerous Thing For A Woman Like Me To Have - But I Have It 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
"I've been tearing around in my fucking nightgown 24/7, Sylvia Plath Writing in blood on the walls 'Cause the ink in my pen don't work in my notepad Don't ask if I'm happy, you know that I'm not But at best I can say I'm not sad"
"Except for the stage which I also call home when I'm not Serving up God in a burnt coffee pot for the triad Hello it's the most famous woman you know on the iPad Calling from beyond the grave, I just wanna say, "Hi dad"
"There's a new revolution A loud evolution That I saw Born of confusion And quiet collusion Of which mostly I've known A modern day woman With a weak constitution 'Cause I've got Monsters still under my bed That I could never fight off A gatekeeper carelessly dropping The keys on my nights off"
This whole track is a beautifully wrriten poetry, an anthem for the times. Being one of the most personal notes in the whole album, we saw she was "a 24/7 sylvia plath", she "couldn't care less but never cared more", she still had "monsters under her bed that she could never fight off".
This world is a dangerous place, under the modern structure of America, it remains dangerous for a woman like her, for a woman like me. Happiness slips away from my hands, fear of fun and love, fall in love but getting hearts broken, makes me just wanna party all night and forget about the happiness and depression, at least we can say we are not sad. I feel such confusion all the time but was lack of words to say, I am truly grateful that she laid it out.
People are more confused than ever, the planet is rushing towards a place we don't see a happy ending. People are more scared than ever, problems seemed so far away now emerged again to the surface. This is an era of madness, as I am writing down these words, another upsetting news happened and I felt hopeless. This album, maybe depressing to some, gave me hope and strength. It sheds a light to the way I view the world, this is the best anthem for me in this particular time. Thank you.