Dolly Parton has nothing to worry about in the wake of Lana Del Rey’s performance of two more new tracks written with Jack Antonoff, performed at, what else, Jack Antonoff’s benefit (modestly called The Ally Coalition Talent Show) for The Ally Coalition, an organization seeking to promote LGBTQ+ equality.
Performed at New York’s Town Hall, Del Rey offered up renditions of “Venice Bitch” and “How To Disappear,” both recently performed in Brooklyn at the Apple Store (where Del Rey “laughingly” complied with censorship). She then introduced two previously unheard tracks that she billed as “country songs,” explaining, “Me and Jack wrote a couple of country songs just for fun, so we thought we’d play them.” Well, ignoring that it should be “Jack and I,” Del Rey then delved into the slowed down, laidback tempo of “I Must Be Stupid For Being So Happy,” a title of which suggests she hasn’t lost her sardonic sense of humor when it comes to understanding the dangers of being “happy”–or at least ephemerally satisfied.
Engaging in the repeated lyrical motifs that have punctuated her career, Del Rey croons about life being like a movie (specifically hers) and people saying she’s crazy. In this instance, they say it because she has dared to be happy, at one point perhaps referencing the famed shit-eating grin on the Lust for Life album cover by noting, “They think I’m funny for wearing a smile, but it’s just in my nature/And it’s just how you move me.” Elsewhere, it sounds like she should get new, less judgmental friends when she describes, “All my friends say my life’s like a bad country song/I just nod, say I know but I like to sing along.” Also showcasing another frequent lyrical tactic, Del Rey makes mention of a specific musician she likes listening to (as she has in the past with name checks such as Bruce Springsteen, Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison and Elvis Presley) so as to evoke a certain mood, evidenced when she sings, “I just put Hank Williams on, I must be stupid for being so happy/But they can call me what they want.”
It looks as though Hank Williams is her one-trick pony country allusion as she also mentions him again in the second song performed, “Hey Blue Baby,” which opens with, “Hey blue baby put that Hank Williams on.” We get it. You love Hank Williams. She then goes once more the self-referential route by saying, “It’s your little blue baby callin’ for a favorite song,” reminding one instantly of, “It’s me, your little Venice bitch.”
Catering to the notion of what country entails, Del Rey is sure to incorporate grammatical incorrectness with the mention of alcohol as she demands, “Get out that whiskey pour it right quickly, put them hallway lights on.” Despite being a sadder song than “I Must Be Stupid For Being So Happy,” the guitar for “Hey Blue Baby” is much more urgent, with Lana perhaps drawing on her old inspiration for the Born to Die album–the ultimate one that got away due to a substance abuse problem that couldn’t be kicked. So it is that she seems to reminisce of a time based on her pre-fame, trailer park days, “And the only girl you had eyes for played downtown at the local bar/That was me/She was me.”
Once more opting to prove that there is no better songwriter to turn to for inspiration than her, Del Rey again repeats a line already used from “Video Games” (which, again, leads one to believe this song could be geared toward that same old flame): “I tell you all the time, get yourself in line/Tired of waiting, tired of running…you’re making me blue.” The mention of the color blue is also, naturally, in keeping with the Del Rey formula, her gift for painting visual portraits in her songs often secretly reliant on verbal use of the color wheel–with an especial preference, it has to be said, for blue (e.g. “blue hydrangea, cold cash divine,” “my baby lives in shades of blue,” “flames so hot that they turn blue,” “Blue Ribbons on ice,” “blue jeans, white shirt” and “I like the snake on your tattoo, I like the ivy and the ink blue”–to name a few examples).
That former country turned pop star Taylor Swift was also in attendance to perform seemed to further underscore the elastic concept of what country now is, more pop than anything else, and able to fall “under the umbrella” so long as one sounds just a little bit melancholic. And if anyone has that down pat, it’s LDR. But she might want to listen to less Hank Williams and more Loretta Lynn.
https://youtu.be/N_Hciu8vplA
