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

Lolita

lyrics:

—
would you be mine?
would you be my baby tonight?
could be kissing my fruit punch lips in the bright sunshine
'cause I like you quite a lot
everything you've got
don't you know?
it's you that I adore
though I make the boys fall like dominoes

kiss me in the d-a-r-k, dark tonight
(d-a-r-k, do it my way)
kiss me in the p-a-r-k, park tonight
(p-a-r-k, let them all say!..)

"hey Lolita, hey!
hey Lolita, hey!"
I know what the boys want, I'm not gonna play
"hey Lolita, hey!
hey Lolita, hey!"
whistle all you want but I'm not gonna stay

no more skipping rope
skipping heart beats with the boys downtown
just you and me feeling the heat
even when the sun goes down.

I could be yours
I could be your baby tonight
topple you down from your sky
forty stories high
shining like a god
can't believe I caught you and so—
look at what I bought, not a second thought
oh Romeo

I want my cake and I wanna eat it too
I wanna have fun and be in love with you
I know that I'm a mess with my long hair
and my suntan, short dress, bare feet

I don't care what they say about me
what they say about me
because I know that it's l-o-v-e
you make me happy
you make me happy
and I never listen to anyone...
(let them all say!..)
—

analysis:

—

my thoughts

Lolita is the fourteenth track off the deluxe edition of Del Rey's debut album Born To Die. The demo version was named "Hey Lolita Hey" before it was reworked to fit the musical theme of the record. The song serves as the second international bonus track as the closing track on the Target exclusive edition. The name "Lolita" is a reference to Nabokov's 1955 novel by the same name, which she has made numerous references to in Born To Die. The most notable are in Off To The Races and Carmen.

The track begins with the run of violins and then a booming, bouncing bass kicks in. On the demo version, it's faster, with a bass guitar riff.
"Could be kissing my fruit punch lips in the bright sunshine" Lana likes to relate her body parts to food. Here she says that her lips taste like fruit punch (although she is singing from Lolita's perspective) - she tries to seduce this man by selling her benefits to him.

However, in the context of the storyline of "Lolita", "fruit punch lips" could be referencing the beverage or fruit punch lipgloss, which is not something you would find on a sophisticated woman. She understates her love for this man, which is shown by her desire to get him into bed. By "everything you got" she wants him to give her "everything" in terms of sexual intercourse. In addition, in the story the titular character exhorts Humbert for his money, so this line could also be relating to materialistic gain.

By the spelling in the pre-chorus "kiss me in the d-a-r-k, dark tonight" it's a childish touch that puts on the act of immaturity and young promiscuity. When the chorus comes in, it's with the "hey Lolita, hey!" chant that is supposed to be from the kids around her (or the boys). She says she doesn't care and ignores them, because she really only loves her older man (in the storyline Humbert). People don't usually tend to dig this deep with the lyrics, and she it as an all in all "bad girl-sugar daddy" kind of song, not unlike her others.

But this song might not just be from the actual perspective of Lolita, but rather from the paedophilic thoughts of Humbert. He sees her as a beautiful, young girl who he falls in love with despite their age gap and so in his view of things, maybe this is the way she acts. Maybe from his perspective she is sexually promiscuous, even if she might not be. The storyline of "Lolita" is very dark and horrible, but a beautiful story in the way it is written, the literature, even if it makes the reader extremely uncomfortable, which is why Lana Del Rey probably took so much inspiration from it.

—