Three years after the release of Børns’ debut album, Dopamine, his second offering to the music gods is a perfected product on a sound and motif that is so often missing from the pop world: innovation and meaning. With the positive reception of Dopamine, Børns flung himself head first into the touring realm, an alternate dimension where it’s easy to get away from the average person’s concept of “ordinary life.” Critical accolades from the likes of Prince (the song and video for “Electric Love” most definitely conjures parallels) only added to the surrealism of Børns’ instant success. All of that being said, the tone of Blue Madonna–which took three years to put out precisely because of a need to stay out the limelight–is one undeniably ethereal. And in keeping with the allusion to one of the Madonnas, you could say that this is his Ray of Light, and already so early on his career.
Opening with the first Lana Del Rey collaboration of the album, “God Save Our Young Blood,” a vague continuation of Del Rey’s youth fetishization from “Love,” the listener is immediately introduced to the theme of rebirth and an immortal self, presenting itself in the joint lyric, “Baptized in blue skies/Roll the window down, reach out, feel around for new life.” Considering each singer’s “old soul” aura, it’s no wonder the two were drawn to one another. And, naturally, reference to the West must be made (even though Børns is from Michigan and Del Rey from New York) with: “Warm waves, warm waves, on the coast where we love.”
Apart from a bizarre affinity for the left coast, both artists have a certain fetish for an Americana that no longer exists, but that they believe is somehow still possible. “American Money” off of Dopamine contains many of the themes of “National Anthem, “Radio” and “American” from Del Rey’s early work. What’s more, “Faded Heart” reveals Børns’ predilection for astronomy, a passion for the galaxies beyond present in “mysterious universe/I know you’re unrehearsed/But I see the light in your hands/You’re the man with the plan, oh, yeah.” Likewise, Del Rey’s Lust for Life promo, in addition to her video for “Love,” expresses a reverence for the worlds outside of our own. And then there’s Del Rey’s Elon Musk obsession to bring added layers to her work.
Not to be confused with Eurythmics’ song of the same name, “Sweet Dreams” is a mid-tempo track that, like much of Del Rey’s canon, focuses on love gone wrong as Børns croons, “Hearts in the cage, hearts in the cage/You, you flipped the page and slipped away/Never thought that you were /Someone to say things that you didn’t mean/You didn’t even call to wish me sweet dreams/Really thought we made a sweet team.” But alas, emotional schadenfreude is all beautiful people like Børns and Del Rey can know, not belonging to the world as they do.
The jauntier “We Don’t Care,” with an opening riff akin to something The Strokes would come up with, delivers a coinciding storyline to “Religion” from Honeymoon, as Børns declares, “She’s my light/She’s my daredevil halo tonight/The world’s on fire” in a way that harkens back to, “You’re my religion, you’re how I’m living/When I’m down on my knees, you’re how I pray.” Again, the spiritual motif of Blue Madonna extends not just to veneration for whatever lies outside of this earth, but for the few people within it who can sometimes feel like a little bit of heaven.
The monosyllabic in title “Man” possesses one of the most danceable beats of Blue Madonna as Børns alludes to the same sort of antiquated device Del Rey would (and has): a radio. Noting, “I got lost in the static but I hear your sound,” Børns builds on the notion of an imminent apocalypse (rather the way Del Rey does on “When The World Was At War We Kept Dancing”), making the most of it by telling his would-be lover, “If the world’s gonna end, I wanna be your friend/When the lights go down, I wanna be your man.”
The subject of worshipping a love interest persists on “Iceberg” (perhaps also a loose homage to the Jack and Rose intensity that romance can attain), with Børns taking a page from much of Del Rey’s obsessive stylings from Born to Die. A backbeat not unlike the sonic vibe of Tame Impala’s Currents, “Iceberg” is among the lushest songs of the record.
Evoking seasonal imagery, “Second Night of Summer” (do I need to mention “Summertime Sadness” and “Summer Bummer”?) is a lamenting tale of woe about losing a girl to the West (that odious West!). Recounting, “She’s heading to the west in the airplane/Careless with my heart in a carry on/I’m trying to forget her/I’m trying to forget her/I bet she’s in a beach chair somewhere/Breaking new hearts by the poolside,” it’s almost as though he’s talking about LDR herself as we imagine her in one of her many water-oriented videos.
Sort of the “In My Feelings” of Blue Madonna, “I Don’t Want U Back” finds Børns coming to terms with some harsh revelations about the one he thought he loved. Like LDR accepting that she “fell for another loser,” Børns has the epiphany that “the bigger the lies the harder they fall/The hotter the fire the faster the love is gonna burn up/The hotter the fire the smoke and the mirrors/It’s clear I’m better off without ya.” And P.S. it would make a really good mashup with Eamon’s “Fuck It (I Don’t Want You Back).”
The fanciful “Tension (Interlude)” is about being “kicked to the curb” by someone–not exactly as intellectual as Del Rey’s “Burnt Norton (Interlude),” but then, we can’t all rip off our shit from T.S. Eliot. Slowing down the mood is “Supernatural,” which, incidentally, is the name of a Madonna song as well, the title Blue Madonna subconsciously infiltrating where it can. Back in an amorous mood, Børns finds his renewal for love to be transcendental, “like the sound of the ocean/Just rolling around in the blue.” A “spooky,” ghost-like sound effect in the background heightens the sentiment of elation.
The second (and better of the two) tracks featuring Lana Del Rey is none other than “Blue Madonna.” Harmonizing to siren-like exquisiteness, it makes “Lust for Life” look like something that should have remained as an unreleased demo. Bringing the concept of abstract religion as it relates to love to its zenith, Børns paints the portrait of his own Blue Madonna: “Someone must have sent me to heaven/Blue Madonna down by the pool (LDR always by the damn pool)/Just want to make her feel like a virgin (more “real” Madonna references)/A version of herself that she once knew.”
For Del Rey’s part, her long-standing use of color to evince a feeling in her songs is stronger than ever as she sings, “Blue Madonna in my head now/Blue Madonna in my bed now/Blue Madonna cherry red now/In this light.” In her commingled vocals with Børns, we’re given what’s sure to remain one of the most redolent tracks of 2018.
Saying “Bye-bye Darling” on the final track, faint traces of what sounds like it should be an organ-centric song serve as a eulogy for “the accident age,” for no longer being able “to meet you on the street, sweep you off your feet, you know.” Likely throwing shade at the lack of any opportunity for romantic happenstance in an era that favors pre-manufactured encounters, Børns ruefully asserts, “Bye bye darling, goodbye in advance.”
And so we’ve reached the end of our prayer book, leading us to unearth that while Børns is very much his own musician, the companionship of Del Rey on this sophomore effort is a strong indication of the thematic and lyrical turn his work is influenced by as it continues to twist along its own separate from all the rest path. With aesthetic and sonic hints of Kurt Vile and Ariel Pink, Børns is a natural fit for Lana Del Rey–and not just because the two both performed at the Tower of Song Leonard Cohen tribute concert or that the video for “10,000 Emerald Pools” could easily be mashed up with “Music To Watch Boys To.” No, they both seem to possess spirits too pure, earnest and melodramatic for Planet Earth.
