Lana Del Rey | Born To Die (Deluxe) | lyrics

Summertime Sadness

lyrics:
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kiss me hard before you go
summertime sadness
I just wanted you to know
that baby, you the best

I got my red dress on tonight
dancing in the dark in the pale moonlight
done my hair up real big, beauty queen style
high heels off, I'm feeling alive

oh my God
I feel it in the air
telephone wires above
all sizzling like your stare
honey, I'm on fire
I feel it everywhere
nothing scares me anymore
(1, 2, 3, 4)

I got that summertime
summertime sadness
s-s-summertime, summertime sadness
got that summertime
summertime sadness
oh, oh-oh

I'm feeling electric tonight
cruising down the coast going 'bout '99
got my bad baby by my heavenly side
I know if I go I'll die happy tonight

think I'll miss you forever
like the stars miss the sun in the morning sky
later's better than never
even if you're gone I'm gonna drive
drive...
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analysis:

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my thoughts

Summertime Sadness is the fifth single and eleventh track off Del Rey's debut record Born To Die. The track was one of Lana's most popular songs at the time after Video Games, and when a more upbeat remix of it was made, it gained even more success. It explored the atmosphere of a bittersweet summertime where Lana danced, cruised and felt electrified with a loved one. It's a sad song, but one of her most upbeat considering her previous works, with reverb drenched guitars and shuffling beats to match the melancholy song.

Summer is a very central theme throughout all of Lana's music, as she says it's the time when she feels most happiest. By the beach in the summer, with the hot sun shining down and endless Californian waves stretching out in blue arches. Even her upcoming record Norman Fucking Rockwell, has very strong themes of summer, America and surfing.

The accompanying music video created great speculation over its underlying message, with its tragically beautiful visuals. The song would at first seem to be about one of her previous lovers, who maybe broke her heart or left her during the summer. But judging by the visuals, people speculate the song could be about a friend committing suicide. The line "I know if I go, I'll die happy tonight" , could further prove this theory. The video cuts between moments of happiness between the two friends (the other being Jamie King) and then to them driving in a car, looking sad as Lana wishes to comfort her friend who is in tears as she drives. In the end, there are shots of both Lana and Jamie jumping from a high height to their death, and even though there isn't much context in the storyline of the song, it still provides a stabbing sadness that suicide brings.

But maybe this could be a comparison to being left or breaking up with someone you love passionately and feeling so lost and depressed you don't feel like even living anymore, because they are such a big part of you.

So whether it is the loss of a friend, a lover, or even yourself, the feeling still runs just as miserable at the loss of a loved one, and to put a stereotypically happy season (pathetic fallacy of summer) with the word sadness and the idea of mourning in this time, such as for your former self, simply shows Lana Del Rey's incredible writing capability.

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