Lana Del Rey's magnum opus, Norman Fucking Rockwell! was released in September of 2018 and earned the singer-songwriters the acclaim she had been laying the foundation for since 2012's Born to Die. A year after her lackluster album/ collection of good songs Lust for Life, she released the first single from NFR, "The Mariner's Apartment Complex" and quickly followed it with another single, the 9:38 song "Venice Bitch." She began building hype for the record, a cohesive record using the Americana formula Del Rey uses best, a year before its release. The singer awkwardly promoted the album in October of 2018, 11 months before its release, at an Apple Keynote event. The singer wasn't allowed to say the name of her upcoming album or its single, which she played censored, "Venice Bitch," as Jack Antonoff played the piano.
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Norman Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post
Cover, Public Domain
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YOU DON'T EVER HAVE TO GO FASTER THAN YOUR FASTEST PACE. I remember a coffee table book we had, a warn spiral-bound collection of Norman Rockwell's most popular Saturday Evening Post covers. The paintings are uniquely American, often slightly uncouth, compared to what would have been considered proper art of the day. Born in 1894 and dying in 1978, Rockwell set out to capture Americans as they were, sometimes overweight, showing full expression to a surprising moment, and in the common working-to-middle class settings of the day. He captured American life in the way that The Simpsons. or Rosanne captured the American family when the pretense of the cameras in Leave It to Beaver or The Brady Bunch had packed up and the family was left to untuck their shirts or have an argument. One painting I remember the clearest is No Swimming, a painting in which three boys are running with, trying to put their clothes back on. I stared at that painting taken by the lifelike use of motion and detail of the moving bodies. Viewers don't know exactly what the boys are running from, but anyone who was once a kid knows exactly what they are running from. Looking at this painting when I was about seven or eight years old, made me feel a fascination I had never felt before.
I'LL PICK YOU UP. "California" is a song that made me think about going back home "to America." I think about what my mom says when I'm back home: "We'll do whatever you want to do. It's all about you." That's exactly what a ten-year-old wants to hear a couple days of the year, but as a 30-something I think it's rather sad. I feel bad that when I come home to America it's such a big deal. I'd much rather just blend into everyone's daily life, have a few lunches together, and be able to be "back home" a couple times a year so it's not so special. I've thought about getting a job that would let me get home twice a year. However, now with the pandemic and air travel being what it is, it seems being away is inevitable. So as we come closer to the holidays, although most of the references in "California" don't really apply to me, the song makes me feel homesick. It makes me miss my Lana Del Rey-fan sisters. It makes me miss my friends who show me around the recently-transformed micro-brewery city full of hipster/redneck nightlife. It makes me miss my parents who make all my favorite foods. If I come back to America, I'll hit you all up.
Read “California” by Lana Del Rey on Genius.
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