“Think of what’s going on now. Where am I going to get my inspiration? I couldn’t think of a thing today that I would really genuinely want to be a part of.”
Lana Del Rey, NYT, 2014
It's 2017 now, and Lana Del Rey has explicitly realigned her artistic inspirations to the present. Her latest song from her upcoming fifth album Lust for Life is "Coachella – Woodstock In My Mind", which was inspired by her time at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in the Colorado Desert. Last month, she previewed the song's chorus on Instagram, while explaining its source of inspiration:
"I'm not gonna lie- I had complex feelings about spending the weekend dancing whilst watching tensions w North Korea mount. I find It's a tightrope between being vigilantly observant of everything going on in the world and also having enough space and time to appreciate God's good earth the way it was intended to be appreciated. On my way home I found myself compelled to visit an old favorite place of mine at the rim of the world highway where I took a moment to sit down by the sequoia grove and write a little song".
After her relatively unconvincing flirtations with an optimistic message and a mainstream pop flavour on "Lust for Life", Del Rey returns to her trademark retro-inflected melancholy on the track. Contemplative and cinematic, she lets her lyrics pull their weight against a backdrop of subtle R&B beats. As the song title indicates, Del Rey's attendance at Coachella in 2017 inspires flashbacks of The Woodstock Music & Art Fair in 1969.
While watching a charismatic male performer (presumably Father John Misty) take the stage from the sidelines (with his wife), Del Rey meditates on 'All of the love' she sees in this crowd of flower children. Their cross-generational ideals of peace, love and the pursuit of happiness are contrasted with the grim realisation that 'Tensions were rising over country lines' the next morning, prompting Del Rey to confess that she would give up all her wordly pursuits in exchange for answers to these thorny metaphysical quandaries:
'I'd trade it all for a stairway to heaven (a stairway, stairway to heaven)I'd take my time for the climb up to the top of it (a stairway)I'd trade the fame and the fortune and the legend (a stairway)I'd give it all away if you give me just one day to ask him one questionI'd give it all away if you give me just one day to ask him one question'
Lyrics: Genius
While the track's lukewarm political message falls short of qualifying for protest music, it does compare favourably to other attempts at 'wokeness' from her mainstream contemporaries. At the very least, it turns the misogynistic inspiration for Led Zeppelin's anthemic "Stairway to Heaven" (Robert Planted noted that the iconic rock hit was inspired by "some cynical aside about a woman getting everything she wanted all the time without giving back any thought or consideration") on its head while being a lovely and thoughtful song.
Del Rey has been undoubtedly honest with regard to the extent of her sociopolitical ambitions for the song. She noted that she "just wanted to share this in hopes that one individual's hope and prayer for peace might contribute to the possibility of it in the long run" - a comment mirrored by the lines 'Maybe my contribution/ Could be as small as hoping/ That words could turn to birds and birds would send my thoughts your way'. These are lovely thoughts and sentiments, as well as a change from the cinematic solipsism one might expect from her. And yet, I cannot help but feel that she is capable of contributions which are greater and more impactful than this.
