“Thunder” sees the artist rebuking a man whom she knows so intimately that she sees through the veneer he puts on for other people. Her music has long explored the charged dynamics between men and women, but Blue Banisters ventures into untrod territory for her. “Blue Banisters” marks a new wrinkle in Del Rey’s portrayal of gender. Later, after “a baby’s on the way,” her sisters come to paint her banisters “green and gray,” as if to highlight the man’s empty promise. To further confound the motif, across the two distinct choruses of the title track, Del Rey describes a man who promises to paint her banisters blue and enliven her dreary existence. On “Nectar of the Gods,” the singer admits that she gets “wild and fuckin’ crazy like the color blue,” suggesting inspiration morphing into impulsiveness. When, on “Beautiful,” Del Rey quips, “What if someone had asked/Picasso not to be sad…there would be no blue period,” we understand “blue” to represent not just a state of depression, but one that yields inspiration. Hip-hop stalwart Mike Dean also contributes to one track, the piano-driven “Wildflower Wildfire,” but his presence is as much of a tease as the Morricone-quoting “Interlude – The Trio,” whose big, rattling 808s erupt out of nowhere on an album with otherwise minimal percussion.Ī fascination with color, a recurring thread that’s ever-shifting in its meaning, is weaved throughout Blue Banisters. This is, perhaps, due to the absence of producer Jack Antonoff, replaced here with less well-known collaborators like Gabe Simon and Drew Erickson. Where this past spring’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club underlined its genres of choice-country, folk, jazz-via overt lyrical and musical references, Blue Banisters merely hints at its own with far-off pedal steel (“Text Book”) and tittering jazz drums (“Black Bathing Suit”). The lyric serves as a statement of purpose, reflecting the album’s pared-down arrangements, as in the glistening, interlocking piano chords on “Beautiful,” the emphatically plucked acoustic guitar on “Nectar of the Gods,” and plaintive brass instruments on “Arcadia” and “If You Lie Down with Me.” The decision to keep the music sparse draws focus to the lyrical content, which is some of the most razor-sharp and bitingly funny of Del Rey’s career: “‘Crypto forever!’/Screams your stupid boyfriend/Fuck you, Kevin,” she quips on “Sweet Carolina.”

“Let’s keep it simple, babe/Don’t make it complicated,” Lana Del Rey purrs at the start of “Beautiful,” a track from her eighth studio album, Blue Banisters.

Living legend lyrics lana del rey