'People Love Mysteries/People Love Visions': A Brief Journey Into Lana Del Rey's Poetry Audiobook
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On Tuesday, Lana Del Rey released her highly anticipated audiobook of poetry, Violent Bent Backwards Over the Grass. The audiobook is part album, part spoken word, part love letter to California, part life story, but all around entirely aurally grueling for those of us, like myself, who wear hearing aids or any other sort of device to make listening easier. (There is an underlying sound that plays throughout the audiobook that hits my hearing aid like nails on a chalkboard)
But art is suffering, and so I rejiggered my hearing aid several times in an attempt to truly understand Del Rey’s soul as she bore it through poetry.
But beyond any auditory challenges from the audiobook’s conceit, the poetry Del Rey employs in the project reads like an amalgamation of memes and slogans. The first four chapters seem to be about Del Rey’s love-hate relationship with areas of Los Angeles. As a lifelong east coaster, I’m certain there was some nuance that went over my head such as these powerful opening lines:
I left my city for San Francisco
Took a free ride off a billionaire’s jet
L.A., I’m from nowhere, who am I to love you?
L.A., I’ve got nothing, who am I to love you when I’m feeling this way and I’ve got nothing to offer?
L.A., not quite the city that never sleeps
Not quite the city that wakes, but the city that dreams, for sure
If by dreams you mean in nightmares
L.A., I’m a dreamer, but I’m from nowhere, who am I to dream?
L.A., I’m upset, I have complaints, listen to me
They say I came from money and I didn’t, and I didn’t even have love, and it’s unfair
L.A, I sold my life rights for a big check and I’m upset
Del Rey’s voice is clear and concise as she perfectly enunciates every word, but at the same time is incredibly childlike in portions—particularly in Chapter 1, where she repeats the phrase, “L.A., I’m lonely can I come home now?” When Del Rey isn’t taking on the tone of a small child, she sounds vaguely like an untrained phone sex operator. This is most obvious when she adds extra petulance in her voice to deliver the lines:
Also, neither one of us can go back to New York
For you, are unmoving
As for me, it won’t be my city again until I’m dead
Fuck the New York Post
Listeners can truly feel Del Rey’s disdain for the East Coast media elite.