Del Rey also name-checks Crosby, Stills and Nash, adding them to her long list of famous musicians she’s included in her music. On “Bartender,” Del Rey kicks things off with a likely second Joni Mitchell reference: Mitchell’s 1970 album was called Ladies of the Canyon, itself a reference to women who live in L.A.’s famously creative Laurel Canyon area. And then there’s her most millennial line yet: “The culture is lit, and if this is it, I had a ball / I guess that I’m burned out after all.” Her play on words turns the phrase on its head, skewering the youthful slang term “lit” and leaning into the nihilistic burnout instead. There’s a mention of a 2018 missile scare in Hawaii, of changing weather in L.A., of Kanye West’s evolution from rapper to lightning rod of controversy, of the dire straits of the planet (“‘Life on Mars‘ ain’t just a song”). There’s a nod to Dennis Wilson, ill-fated drummer for the Beach Boys, and the paradise island of “Kokomo.” There’s a line about missing New York and its music scene, where she started, and the rock ‘n’ roll of an earlier era. One of the most directly nostalgic of Del Rey’s songs on Norman F-ing Rockwell, “The greatest” sees her looking back on recent history - both musical and political - as she bemoans the present.
In that song, Mitchell sings of traveling around Europe - and “then I’m coming home to California… will you take me as I am, strung out on another man?” In her version, Del Rey has an answer: “If you come back to California, you should just hit me up / we’ll do whatever you want, travel wherever how far.” Mitchell mentions reading Rolling Stone and Vogue magazines Del Rey promises “I’ll pick up all of your Vogues and all of your Rolling Stones.” It’s a conversation stretched out over the decades, one asking a question about the hospitality of the Golden State, the other answering graciously. It also sees her calling in a reference to Joni Mitchell and her 1971 song “California,” which seems to serve as a direct inspiration. “California” doubles down on Del Rey’s fixation on the state (see: her mention of the “Santa Ana,” famously strong winds that whip through California).
LYRICS LANA DEL REY MOVIE
(“Cuts on his face cause he fought too hard… I watched the guys getting high as they fight for the things that they hold dear / to forget the the things they fear,” she observes.) Del Rey envisions a fictional, familial future for herself “I’ve got a kid and two cats in the yard / The California sun and the movie stars…”) with Joe, but the song really contemplates the slippery nature of a relationship she clings to. Slow-burning but with a jazzy kick, “How to disappear” spins a tale of Del Rey’s love for a man - named, in this instance, Joe - that also serves as a commentary on traditional American masculinity. As for the title and first line about “cinnamon in my teeth”? Cinnamon also featured in 2012’s “Radio,” - “Now my life is sweet like cinnamon / like a f-cking dream I’m living in” - suggesting the kind of complex, wild-ride romances she’s know for writing about. “If you hold me without hurting me, you’ll be the first who ever did,” she sings, her voice an angelic falsetto even as she describes emotional devastation.
Del Rey has subdued her rebel side in favor of partnership.Ī slow march of a song, “Cinnamon Girl” details a conflicted relationship. “Is it safe to just be who we are?” she wonders over a minimal piano and strings background. The only visuals she draws are of a car: “In the backseat, I’m your baby / we go fast, we go so fast we don’t move… so spill my clothes on the floor of your new car.” This isn’t the first time she’s doubled down on auto iconography ( “Born to Die,” anyone?) but now there’s a sweetness instead of a recklessness in her attitude. The song is exactly as the title tells it: a tender, intimate love ballad. On “Love Song,” Del Rey leans into sincerity. That commitment adds new twists to the otherwise straightforward storytelling of “Doin’ Time,” inserting Del Rey into the song’s layered history. She sticks to the original lyrics, name-checking Sublime singer Bradley Nowell, and drummer Marshall “Ras MG” Goodman, and maintaining the gendered pronouns in the bridge about an “evil” girlfriend. Her cover of the 1996 Sublime song (which samples Gershwin’s 1930s “Summertime”) is breezy and swinging, turning the track into an atmospheric, bossa-nova-inflected mood. A whole generation may grow up with Del Rey’s version of “Doin’ Time” as their classic.
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