Lana Del Rey Returns to Her Church Choir Roots With “The Grants,” A Rumination on Memory and, More Subtly, Plath’s Fig Tree

With a recent interview in Billboard noting that Lana Del Rey found herself figuratively going back to Lake Placid as she wrote Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, that much seems apparent on her third release thus far from the record: “The Grants.” For those who aren’t more than just cursory fans, the title refers to her true last name. Born Elizabeth Woolridge Grant, Lana Del Rey only transformed into her stage name around 2010 (though, back then, it was spelled “Del Ray”). One year later, her “Video Games” single would launch her into the international spotlight. A vastly different space than small-town Lake Placid, which, up until Del Rey, was only really on anyone’s radar because there was a horror-comedy movie named after it (though it’s not actually set in Lake Placid at all).

The speculations about Del Rey’s background were (and are) rampant upon the debut of Born to Die in 2012—her father had bought her career, she came from money and was getting off on slumming it in a trailer park, she had a fuck ton of plastic surgery, etc. With “The Grants,” if one was hoping Del Rey might clear up some of the rumors about her background, there’s no allusion to any such light-shedding as she proceeds to talk about, essentially, how all the money and the fame don’t mean shit, etc. What matters is family, and the memories you make with people who are important to you (including, of course, romantic love interests). Just as she referenced a white male singer (Harry Nilsson) on “A&W,” she opts for John Denver on this particular track, making mention of his most famous single, “Rocky Mountain High.” Specifically, “I’m gonna take mine of you with me/Like ‘Rocky Mountain High’/The way John Denver sings.”

She never elaborates on what (or even the way), exactly, it is he sings, but one can surmise it has to do with the lyrics, “And they say that he got crazy once, and he tried to touch the sun/And he lost a friend, but kept the memory.” For Del Rey’s own lyrics on “The Grants” go, “My pastor told me, ‘When you leave, all you take/Uh-huh, is your memory’/And I’m gonna take mine of you with mе.” The “I’m gonna take mine of you with me” part of the chorus comes into focus immediately at the beginning, with an intro featuring a singer correcting the “choir” (it’s a trio) she’s instructing before they proceed “for real. At first, the trio, consisting of Melodye Perry, Pattie Howard and Shikena Jones, mistakes “I’m gonna take mine of you with me” for “I’m gonna take mind of you with me.” It loosely goes back to Del Rey’s form of wordplay on “Not All Who Wander Are Lost,” when she says, “It wasn’t quite what I meaned, if you know what I mean.”

As for Del Rey’s own personal choir of three, each woman was featured in the documentary 20 Feet From Stardom—perhaps Lana’s nod to being a “backup singer” herself in the church choir…except that she was the cantor. Even so, as the “chief singer,” she undoubtedly knows that you’re nothing without good backup (and that’s kind of what a family is, too). Seeing as how the choir life was part of the past Del Rey is reflecting on, it also makes sense that she can’t help but look to her future as well. Will it consist of “furthering” the family line, or will it be a life of quiet devotion to art? Either way, Del Rey wants to assure listeners that she’ll be spending “Eternity” with the Grants. Even if she’s convinced they might actually live forever (as all rich people think they will). For her real Daddy, Rob Grant, has been staying attuned to the scientific research surrounding the “extinction of death” for years. As Del Rey said in her Rolling Stone UK interview, “Why not have that be the focus: self-preservation. Just to stay around and see what happens, you know?” How vampiric (in fact, “Vampires” is an album concept Del Rey has surprisingly not tapped into).

Eerily enough, it also speaks to something Del Rey said early on in her rise to fame: “When I was very young I was sort of floored by the fact that my mother and my father and everyone I knew was going to die one day, and myself too. I had a sort of a philosophical crisis. I couldn’t believe that we were mortal.” Maybe she still can’t—and doesn’t have to if this whole “extinction of death” thing is workable. Which would be a load off Lana acolyte and fellow family lover Billie Eilish’s shoulders too. Even if it would make her a liar for putting out a song called “Everybody Dies”—for that reality is actually more of a comfort to her than a phobia, remarking of the track, “I don’t know why [but] I’ve talked about it since I was a kid. It makes me happy that all things end. It’s also very sad and sentimental. This song is really just about knowing that you only have so long to do what you want, so just do it. Enjoy your life.” Del Rey is ultimately saying the same thing on “The Grants,” albeit in a far rosier package.

With regard to others before her who couldn’t fight the reaper and “stay around,” the callouts of Harry Nilsson and John Denver on these past two singles bear an especial significance considering that the former was born in New York (i.e., Brooklyn) and had major commercial success without much touring or regular radio airplay and the latter was a lauded folk singer-songwriter billed as an emblem of the American West. Del Rey has certainly become that in the years since she correctly decided to defect from NYC in favor of Los Angeles. More and more, it’s difficult to remember a time when she could have ever been branded as a “Brooklyn Baby,” with so much of her work rooted in the inspiration she’s derived from L.A. and its outlying areas (e.g., Arcadia, Rosemead, Newport, Long Beach, et al.).

Still, her nostalgic look at her family lineage undeniably forces her to recall that period of her existence, along with, most especially, the early years spent in a town of roughly a thousand, where, per Del Rey, “the trajectory was: school, junior college, trade school… get married?” Del Rey still has yet to cross that particular threshold, though it’s not for a lack of trying. Her trail of boyfriends far outweigh any body count Taylor Swift has, yet she manages to fly under the radar on this front largely for possessing a “mystical ordinariness,” as Rolling Stone writer Hannah Ewens calls it, that figures heavily into this particular single. A track that most other artists probably wouldn’t have chosen to be a single. And where that has served her well in the past with lengthy numbers like “Venice Bitch” and, more recently, “A&W,” it doesn’t quite carry off without a hitch in this instance.

This is likely because of its decidedly “Christian” timbre (it’s giving “This Little Light of Mine” for sure). In point of fact, it’s the type of song one could categorize as part of the “Katy Hudson” school of rock…except far more passable as secular (and mainstream chart-ready). Because, without question, pop music is no stranger to accommodating religious tones and themes (just look at most of Madonna’s work). And Lana, too, has frequently incorporated Catholic motifs and images into her songs (and “aesthetics”) in the past. Yet something about “The Grants” is schmaltzier than all the others. Most likely attributable to the specificity of Del Rey talking about her family of origin—which is probably a topic she thought would resonate, based on another recent quote from Rolling Stone, in which she noted, “Everyone has these nuanced but specific stories that are so universal to people…” But not quite so with “The Grants.” Maybe because, in actuality, Del Rey doesn’t get specific at all, offering general terms like, “My sister’s firstborn child/I’m gonna take that too with me/My grandmother’s last smile/I’m gonna take that too with me.” Then there’s a very “Easter eggy” nod to her uncle, David Grant, who died climbing the Rocky Mountains (thus, the name-check of the John Denver song). Apart from these mentions, nothing about “The Grants” are really acknowledged, least of all their source of income prior to Lana’s fame (where’s the callout to Rob being a domain developer, huh?).

But as for the concept of someone’s memory living on with you once they’re gone (whether through death or simply extricating themselves from your life), well, that’s fairly sweet—another song title on the record, by the way. Or maybe “bittersweet” is the word, especially for Del Rey in this case, whose now ex-boyfriend, Mike Hermosa, co-wrote the song with her. Along with another tragic number about loss and memory, “Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.” It’s almost as if she knew it was going to end between them, based on these tracks alone. And maybe turning every relationship into a song/album is one surefire method of ensuring she can never truly be forgotten—not by her exes or the public.

As for the reason why the subject of romantic love more often than not creeps into her work, Del Rey commented to Ewens, “Everybody finds themselves in a different way. Some people really find themselves through their work, some people find themselves through travelling. I think my basic mode is that I learn more about myself from being with people, and so when it comes to the romantic side of things, if you’re monogamous and it’s one person you’re with, you just put a lot of importance on that.” In short, she really is The Love Witch that her face is so often being superimposed over (much to Samantha Robinson’s annoyance). So it is that even on a track supposedly about her nuclear family/lineage, Del Rey references her failed relationships in lines like, “So you say there’s a chance for us/Should I do a dance for once?/You’re a family man, but/But…”

The incompleteness of that sentence touches on Del Rey’s Sylvia Plath-oriented fear/metaphor about the figs on the fig tree. If she chooses the life of wife and mother, will she be forced to lose her career? The thing that drives her, ostensibly, more than anything. And yet, knowing that fame is fickle, at best, Del Rey increasingly wonders if she should secure her legacy in some other lasting way—by continuing the Grant lineage. This, too, is addressed on “Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd,” when she asks, “When’s it gonna be my turn?” A bold demand for any white person to make, in their inherent position of privilege, but Del Rey seems to be suggesting that the sight of all friends and siblings making their own families has her pondering when (or if) she’ll be next. To that end, it becomes harder to be so “choosy” about her boyfriend du moment, asking whoever it is, “Do you think about Heaven?/Do you think about me?” (because, apparently, Del Rey views herself as Heaven—e.g., “Say yes to heaven/Say yes to me”).

And yet…obviously, she remains particular as ever. Perhaps it’s all part of the latent eternal commitment to/battle with art over family (see: The Fabelmans). More precisely, the obligation most feel to perpetuate their family line. But because of Del Rey’s unique position as a “cultural icon,” she’s already technically done more than any of her other breeding siblings possibly could to ensure “eternal” clout. Or has she? For the only thing that means more to society than fame, particularly where women are concerned, is spawning. That is, indeed, why more and more pop icons are doing just that where once it never would have been a consideration that they could “have both”—the family and the career. The expectation formerly being that once a woman reaches “a certain age,” she hangs up fame to have kids. Not so anymore. Hence, the likes of Rihanna and Beyoncé expanding their broods, as the latter sings things like, “My great-great-grandchildren already rich/That’s a lot of brown churrin on your Forbes list/Frolickin’ around my compound on my fortress.” But one gets the sense Del Rey wouldn’t be as “gung-ho” about continuing with singing if she surrendered to la vita di famiglia. That she would instead devote herself entirely to said “purpose.” And, lest anyone forget, she did once claim, to Kim Kardashian of all people, that if she hadn’t become a singer, she might have pursued becoming a doula (because, sure, that’s the natural fallback career).

With Del Rey entering a new decade in a few years, however, perhaps the thought of losing out on her chance to have children is on the brain more and more. And how it might ultimately be more “fulfilling” than persisting in relying on “artistry”—ergo, fame—alone. Incidentally, it’s Kesha who freshly wrote as her bio, “There’s a fine line between famous and being forgot” (these being lyrics to an upcoming song of hers). With a child or two, being forgotten becomes impossible. And when Del Rey sings, “I’m doing it for us” on “The Grants” (having already noted as much on “Get Free,” when she announced, “I’m doing it for all of us”), one ponders whether she means she’s holding fast to her career for the sake of the “us” that comprises herself and her fans in a parasocial relationship with her, or if it refers to the “us” that comprises herself and the rest of the Grants, in terms of choosing to “propagate their species.”

Whatever she ends up “choosing” (or perhaps having it all), the self-reflection process is made apparent on that road to deciding via “The Grants.” But that still doesn’t make the track “single-worthy.”