She grew up in small-town America, struggled to make ends meet, obsessed over abusive men and used her feminine wiles to claw up the ranks of power. She’s the caricature that Lana Del Rey has built with her lyrics since her albums Born to Die (2012) and Ultraviolence (2014).
Maybe you’ve seen this caricature in Del Rey’s descriptions of a nymphomaniac teen who dwells in the fantasies of rich old men. From certain angles, this caricature embodies the American Dream; from others, systemic perversion nestled between illusions of a glamorous lifestyle.
Possibly to add dimension to her shallow caricature, who has largely become diluted by the lure and distraction of glory, lust and getting high, Lana Del Rey takes the perspective of a mature narrator in Chemtrails Over the Country Club (2021). Her lyrics are slightly less raunchy and more divulging than those of her past music in this new album, but the core facets of Del Rey’s carefully spun caricature often loudly interject with their familiar gimmicks.
“White picket chemtrails over the country club,” Del Rey sings in the titular track of the album, which suggests a childhood backed by middle- to upper-class privilege. She further emphasizes this in the line, “we’re in our jewels in the swimming pool,” which suggests that Del Rey doesn’t need to be careful with luxuries such as jewels—perhaps because she can easily acquire replacements.
Del Rey really is from a comfortable financial situation, having grown up in Lake Placid—she was even accepted into Geneseo, but decided against attending. Just because Del Rey’s new album hits a little closer to home—no pun intended—doesn’t mean her persona has shifted in dimension.
In her song “This Is What Makes Us Girls” from Born to Die, Del Rey admits that she “used to go break into the hotel / Glimmering, we'd swim / Running from the cops in our black bikini tops.” This sexy, rule-breaking facet of Del Rey’s persona lives in each of her albums to celebrate the ecstasy that being “wild at heart” offers her, and the latest of her albums is not exempt from this trend of seemingly careless rule-breaking. Del Rey’s love of being free and wild is a motif in many of her songs, extending back to “Religion” from Honeymoon (2015) and “Off to the Races” or “Carmen” from Born to Die and continuing in “wild at heart” off her new album.
This trait of wildness seems to be a response to the fact that Del Rey remains drenched in misery with the state of the world, feeding into distractions like “getting high in the parking lot,” which she sings about in “Dark But Just A Game” on her new album. She’s always been cynical, though, singing “happiness is a butterfly/try to catch it like every night/it escapes from me into the moonlight,” on her song “happiness is a butterfly” from her album Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019). Nothing new in that department.
Another distraction from gloom—and an accessory for Del Rey’s caricature to clutch like a purse—is her love for men with bad habits, which persists in her song “Tulsa Jesus Freak” off her new album. In this song, Del Rey admits to loving a man who always keeps a bottle in his hand. “Video Games” from Born to Die and “Heroin” from Lust for Life (2017) are two more examples of songs in which Del Rey declares that her lovers have substance abuse issues. Her persona can’t seem to get enough of bad, bad men.
Basically, the Lana Del Rey of Chemtrails Over the Country Club appears to be no more honest and no less of a façade than the caricature she’s built in the rest of her discography. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but there’s also nothing new about it. Beyond Del Rey’s more mature narrative voice, she clings to the persona that adores flashy distractions like passion and drugs to forget her disgust with the real world.