Born To Die - Lana Del Rey (Album Version)
In the first month of 2012, according to some to be the last year of earth’s existence, Lana Del Rey dropped her studio album and hit single Born to Die. However, just as the Maya believed that rather than ushering in total apocalypse, the ending of the 13th Baktun would simply turn a new leaf in culture at large, Lana Del Rey emerged on the music scene as somewhat of a Phoenix. At the peak of internet counter culture, the age of soft grunge and sad girls Elizabeth Grant became Lana Del Rey, a personification of old Hollywood glamour and tragedy pandering to a generation of flower crown wearing youth, nostalgic for eras they never lived in. Lana’s voice and production style are otherworldly, her vocals seem to travel through more than space and time and her lyrics are saturated with references to religion, poetry, art, and her mentors. Rather than writing songs for lovers, or to make fans smile, she seems to be more focused on pulling back the curtain of our society and illuminating the beauty in the grit and madness because these spaces are the most raw, visceral and free from judgement.
In terms of understanding Lana Del Rey as an artist, Born to Die is instrumental. The song and album construct Lana’s moral compass, view of our world and how she understands we should operate within it. Lyrically, Born to Die is fairly simple and repetitive but powerful nonetheless. Most notably and most repeated are the lines where Lana tells her lover “not to make [her] sad,” because there is really no reason to care about why the “road gets tough,” and what’s more important is to pass the short time we have “getting high,” “kissing in the rain,” and “talking a walk on the wild side” (a reference to the singer’s late idol Lou Reed, whom she mentions frequently along with the also late Jim Morrison, throughout her discography). Lana offers these potentially criminal suggestions shamelessly, not acknowledging that to many people these behaviors come off as deviant, mischievous or debaucherous because she can see past social convention and institutionalized behavior to a freer, more primal human experience. This revelation is enhanced by the powerful imagery of the song’s accompanying music video.
Opening with two figures tightly embracing, entwined against the backdrop of an American flag, then panning to a French renaissance era cathedral and a highway, the music video is intended to invoke the muses of western convention: the state, the church, and perceived freedom of the open road. However, these images represent even more than just these facets of culture, they also symbolize the respective institutions for which they stand. Within the music video, Lana’s behaviors are in a direct relationship with the imagery.
The song opens with Del Rey questioning, “ Why? Who? Me?,” while seated on a throne, wearing a heavy flower crown, flanked by tigers. These visuals are rich with symbolism. Perhaps the most symbolic image associated with Lana Del Rey is the flower crown. A crown, symbolizing power, royalty and status is usually made of metal, meant to be valuable and indestructible. However, as Robert Frost reminds us, “nothing gold can stay”... Flowers are beautiful but perishable. A crown of flowers is representative of the reality of power, as something desirable, seemingly pleasant and tempting but also fleeting. As the camera pans out beyond the songstress, it becomes clear that she is seated in the nave of a renaissance era cathedral, and her lyrics begin to reflect the nature of this setting.
As Lana sings “ my heart it breaks every step that I take, But I’m hoping that the gates, they'll tell me that you're mine,” she begins to address God and heaven in apostrophe. Together these beings represent the personified “you.” This pattern of associated lyrics and imagery continue throughout the rest of the song, becoming most clear during the last chorus. As the final chorus draws to a close with the phrase “Choose your last words, this is the last time,” Lana runs through the church in a white nightgown, reminiscent of Mary or other biblical women– however the video makes it clear that she is no virgin. As she begins to sing the last line, she opens large double doors revealing a bright white light. This light source is meant to be “the light” that those dying claim to see or reach for, and she heads towards it unafraid. As she finishes the song with its final lyric, “you and I, we were born to die,” the scene changes to a car wreck engulfed in flames. The video’s male love interest carries Lana’s bloody, limp body away from the scene in the classical pieta pose as the scene fades into black. However, this death is not tragic. It was expected. Far from Dylan Thomas’s most famous mandate, “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” Del Rey sees death as transient, a fact of life that we must accept, respect, and live in accordance to.
