Costuming In "The Young Victoria (2009)"

So I think I made claims that I would do a post on this movie many, many months ago when I did the post on The Duchess and I only just now got around to watching it. It has been on the backburner for a long time but was interrupted by my crazy pre-Oscars movie marathoning and then watching a lot of television and then reading a lot of books. What made me finally loop back around to this? Well, I'm going back to England (and for the first time, Ireland) in June and one of my first stops on the list of "Things I Didn't Get To Do The Last Time I Was In London" is Kensington Palace. Being the nerd I am, this means that I had to watch this movie and that I had to do so with Wikipedia open to verify everything that I am seeing. Overall, in case you were wondering, this movie is pretty good in the historically accurate department. Certainly a lot better than say The Tudors or the fairly recent Marie Antoinette. Its a really interesting film and Emily Blunt is delightful.

So what about the costumes? Well, they're pretty, of course, and as far as I can tell they're pretty well aligned with history and Victoria herself. There's a lot of puffed sleeves and half sleeves, wide collars, sashes, and what I'm going to call "mini-shawls." The movie essentially covers the 1820s to the 1840s so this is post Pride and Prejudice Regency-era wear but before the hoops and crinolines and other torture underwear. Also, the movie ends before Prince Albert's death so thankfully I was not subjected to having to write, "And Victoria is still in black because Albert is still dead" over and over again.

I'm not really sure how much of a story Victoria's clothes tell before I really start studying these shots intensely so this might just be a post of pretty things. Nothing wrong with that, right?

As always, click the pictures to make them bigger so you can actually see the detail.

Maybe I'm just an idiot but little girl's dresses from the Georgian era to about the 1910s all look the same to me. The only thing about this image that says post-Regency to me in the corkscrew curl hairstyle.

Luckily, Victoria grows up quickly and I don't need to spend a lot of time with bland childwear.

So throughout the movie Victoria seems to wear purple and bright blue when the scene is correlated with her royalty and this is the first scene that directly confronts her status (when she is able to actually discuss and isn't confined to a bed). Of course, this isn't the vibrant blue that she ends up wearing later when she's queen. This is a light blue, queen-lite. She's a princess and still a child, made even more obvious by the little clips in her hair retaining the same style she had as a child. The silhouette of the dress is only a slightly more mature version of the dress in the earlier picture when she actually is a small child. The gathering on the front and the sash is about the same but it is more of a woman's dress with the more open neckline and shorter, puffed sleeves.

Nightgowns of the 1830s. This is only interesting in comparison to other scenes so I will move on for now.

Victoria meets Albert and he tries to interest her by saying he likes the same things as her. When she calls him on his bull, he admits to liking Shubert which she doesn't care for and this endears her to him a bit.

Victoria wears this dress on two occasions and in both of them it is when she is seeking out companionship and connections outside of her mother's and Sir John's influence. Green shades have a tendency to appear in her clothes whenever she is acting on a personal, rather than political, motive. She hasn't actually gotten into any of the politics of her position yet so what she is looking for at this point is just people who she feels she can trust.

Although I didn't get a shot of it, this is the same dress Victoria wears to the opera in the scene that is intercut with Albert learning about her tastes. In this scene, Victoria confides in Albert about the pressures of her position and he tells her that she should be trying to find a husband who can play the game cleverly with her and not for her. He also tells her about some of the tough things in his own life. Romance buds as they agree to write.

This seems to be her one really fancy evening dress in her pre-queen days and, like most of her things at this point in time, it's a light blue. However, notice her purple headpiece. Purple, being the color of royalty, is often worn by Victoria whenever she is acting on her own political whims over anyone else's and this is the first scene where the idea of acting for yourself is introduced to her by Albert. She's still a puppet but her head is living in a land where she is fully in control herself as she pretty much states in the continuation of this scene below:

The obligatory shot of period underwear. It's pretty much the same as the Regency era: boned corset, petticoats, and a chemise. As I said in the intro, this was before they started wearing hoops and cage crinolines and awful stuff like that but this was also post-panniers. This level of undergarment comfort will not be reached again until the Edwardian era introduces a more comfortable corset and does away with the bustle (which is better than a cage crinoline of the mid-1800s but still).
Symbolically, she takes off her dress to admit her true feelings: she will do whatever pleases her and not everyone who is trying to control her.

In the two large ballroom party scenes in the movie Victoria is in yellow. These are the only times she ever wears yellow as she mostly sticks to greens, blues, purples, pinks, reds, and black so clearly the two scenes are just supposed to be tied to each other. She is warmly received and compared to her other yellow dress, she is still very juvenile looking.

Victoria is threatened and thrown around by Sir John, standing up to him and telling her mother that she will never forget how she did nothing to assist her.

Pink and red are the colors of conflict. Pink specifically has to do with Victoria's relationship with her mother and it all kind of stems from this scene. Clearly she doesn't have the best relationship with her mother but having her sit and watch while her adviser physically harasses her daughter was pretty much the last straw for Victoria.

Victoria confines in Melbourne about how Sir John treated her and asks him for assistance in keeping him and her mother away from her affairs when she becomes queen. Melbourne offers to be her private secretary and requests that she appoint some ladies-in-waiting who are friends of his.

This is the same dress from the scene where she first meets Albert which makes sense since Albert and Melbourne become her two most important connections both politically and personally. This meeting is very different from the other however since the meeting with Albert was mostly personal and this one is mostly political but both aspects are definitely present.

This is the same nightgown as before but damn does it look different. When she's talking to her mother in their room about her meeting the Coburg brothers and John Conroy's control over their lives, the scene is dark, her hair is tied back, and she is mostly shot from the back. Here when she finds out she's queen now, her nightgown is framed in light, her hair is free, and she is shown standing proudly from the front. She now has the power and one of the first things she does? Request that her bed be moved from her mother's room connecting the two scenes.

Victoria ends up wearing this dress for quite a while because her uncle has died. There's no real significance to that but I really dig her bonnet and it's funny how much fussier her sleeves have gotten on this dress over the previous ones. It's not a particularly more high end dress than her previous ones but it's moving slightly in that direction.

When Victoria is in her home, she doesn't wear black. Here she is writing to Albert about how wonderful Melbourne has been to her and symbolically knocking over chess pieces. This dress is only seen for a second and I don't imagine it means much. In fact, it's probably the dumpiest thing she wears in the whole movie which is probably why it is so sparingly used.

In her first outing as queen since she was able to shed the proper mourning attire, she goes for purple. While in Westminster Abbey she talks about her desire to assist the poor, an idea wholly her own.

This outfit is the start of a big trend. Purple being the color of royalty, Victoria adopts it a lot but pretty much always in situations when her job is front and center in a scene. Here they are inspecting the grounds of her coronation site and she talks about her own personal political motives, something that we don't really see until this point since she has mostly had other people's political ideas floating around her.

Note the blue jewels in her crown. It's not hard to since there's not much else in this scene in the way of getting to see the costumes.

This scene really serves one purpose: to remind as that Victoria is still just a girl. After all the serious political discussion, it's easy to forget that fact. Therefore, she's dressed it something kind of frilly and reminiscent of the first child dress she's in in this movie and is sort of giggling and gleeful about her coronation ball like a little kid would be.

Yellow is Vicky's ball color and this is much more mature than her other one that also have flowers on it but sad frilly ones and was a pale, child-like yellow to this shiny, vibrant one. Although I said that there wasn't much to note in the coronation scene aside from the blue gems, this dress is actually almost exactly the same color as the robe she's wearing in that scene. Coronation robe = coronation dress.

Victoria says goodbye to Albert before he goes back to Germany. He tells her he would like to be useful to her and she says, "Not yet." Implied marriage proposal I think. This scene immediately proceeds the most blatant statement of, "We're trying to get Albert to bone the queen."

While there isn't much direct conflict in this scene, her denial of his proposal causes a huge uproar for her Uncle and the people surrounding Albert. Red means she has an enemy (other than her mom) and here it's those who try to control her through her marriage and feelings. Of course, you could also make the argument about red being the color of passion and this is where romantic feelings between Victoria and Albert are made explicitly clear.

Victoria attends a dinner where she discovers that Melbourne is about to lose the vote.

The most interesting thing about this outfit is obviously the sash which matches the jewels in her coronation crown but actually is representative of the Order of the Garter. Throughout the movie Victoria spends a rather surprising amount of time not in formal settings or even out in public at all. This movie is very much focused on her private life so when she is shown at an event such as this one, the full official regalia is out and making callbacks to other official regalia.

Victoria cries over Melbourne's fall from power, feeling like she has lost a powerful ally and even saying to her lady, "You won't desert me, will you?"

Although this isn't quite as light as the blues she wore in her youth, this blue calls back to her childhood far more than the current bright blue of her queenhood and she reacts to this political situation like a child: crying and feeling abandoned. Aside from the collar, the lace detail and the gathering, virtually absent in her regular clothes now, also recall some of her earliest clothes.

Sir Robert Peel, the new PM, tells Victoria that her house is full of people who politically lie with Melbourne and that she should appoint some people who agree with his side. She has none of it.

This dress says it all: the reds of conflict mixed with purple just to remind him of her status. Essentially it says, "I don't like you but I'm in charge so deal." Also, Victoria really doesn't wear full sleeves indoors very often but here she's all covered up and serious. Something about the structure of this dress is so stiff and authoritative. It actually reminds me a lot of dress she wore when she had that confrontation with Sir John that changed her attitude towards her mother.

Victoria attends an opera where someone calls her "Mrs. Melbourne" mockingly.

Out in public, she's full on queen mode. This dress and sash are exactly the same as the ones she wore when she found out Melbourne was about the lose the vote. This is her Melbourne outfit for now but her attitude towards him will change soon and you won't see this again.

Victoria's adviser tells her that she is being stubborn in her opposition of Peel's wishes and on the way they pass a man blaming her bad judgement on her mother.

Purple and pink. It makes sense that she would be wearing dark pink again when her mother is brought up.

During a recital, the palace is attacked.

It's a social event and she was wearing cream during her last social event at the opera but this one is less official so there's no crown or sash.

Victoria talks to her lady about how the people think she is causing trouble.

Back to childhood robe. Whenever Victoria confides in Letzen, she pretty much reverts back to a child because she was one of her only allies throughout her childhood.

Victoria writes to Albert about the conflicts and he tells her to think for herself. Then she gets a letter from her mother that is completely apolitical and tells her just that she loves her and feels sorry for her current pain.

Purple is all about Victoria taking control and that's what Albert advises here. Since the situation mentioned with her mother is wholly positive, there's no need for pink in her clothes.

Victoria talks to Melbourne about her own concerns for the poor and tells him that she has invited Albert for a visit. Melbourne can do nothing but agree to her ideas.

This is the most conflicted bow ever. Make of that what you will. I like to think that this bow shows the end of her smooth relationship with Melbourne. She has worn blue in relation to him before and red means an enemy. Here both are true.
Also, Victoria's travelling outfits all seem to be dark colors, usually muted blues or teals. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's to capitalize on the fact that when most people think of Victoria they think of her in dark colors because she spent so much of her life wearing black in mourning of Albert. Of course, she's not mourning so this is the closest they could get.

"I should have worn the red"
Victoria greets Albert when he arrives at Buckingham Palace.

So if red is a color of conflict, why does she think she should have worn it? Albert first brought up marriage while she was wearing a red dress. Instead she's greeting him as her powerful queen self in purple. Much better choice.

Victoria and Albert finally get engaged.

Same dress she wore to that dinner and to the opera. Perhaps it's a favorite because it certainly isn't lucky based on the other two times she wore it.

Wedding dress porn. How close do you think?

I don't actually have any clothing commentary. I just screenshoted these because they're cute.

Victoria and Albert: Newlyweds.

Dark travelling clothes. Unusually dark really. Possible awful foreshadowing?

Victoria does her job while Albert talks about the dirty windows, not sure what to do with himself and being called a guest by Victoria's ladies.

Doing her job in purple. She's definitely taking Albert's letter to heart; unfortunately he isn't needed when she is relying only on herself like he told her.

Victoria talks about how Albert thinks Melbourne and Letzen control her but doesn't believe that he does. Her friend tells her that Albert has it hard and to let him change some things around if he wishes.

Victoria usually has green on when there's a personal conflict and this most definitely qualifies. Also, she's got on some dark travelling clothes. It's interesting when shawls appear. They aren't a thing she wears all the time when she's walking around but they are often related to a personal moment with someone: first Albert, then this girl, and later Melbourne.

Victoria and Albert talk to her mother for the first time in a while as Albert tries to smooth over their relationship. Albert then tells Melbourne that he has no use for his advice.

Conflict pink with her mother. When don't even get to see the front of this dress, this scene is so short but this is all you need to know. Also, note how the pinks are getting progressively darker from the original like pink.

Victoria encounters Sir John in an empty room and ignores him, making sure to expel him from the castle later.

Green is often what she's wearing when something personal is being discussed. Here nothing is being discussed but she is acting purely on personal response. Sir John hasn't done anything to her in years and isn't doing anything to her here but his presence just leaves such a bad taste in her mouth that she just wants him gone. As a side benefit, her mother is not happy by it.

During an event Victoria learns that Albert has been making deals with Robert Peel to get some of Victoria's ladies out of the palace so some people who agree with him can take their place. Later, she and Albert argue about who is really in power and she essentially says, "Fuck off, Albert. I make my own damn mistakes because I am the one with the power."

Usually rocking cream at social gatherings, Victoria breaks out the purple pretty much for that fight with Albert. It's like, "Who's wearing the royal color?! Me! Also, who told me in the first place to trust in my own power and opinions? You!" This is also the first social event since her coronation ball that she has spend with Albert. Maybe that's why she's breaking out the excessive flower details again.

After Albert leaves against her wishes, this makes for a very tense morning drive together. On the drive, an assassination attempt is made and Albert gets hurt in the process.

Green means personal issues! Also, this outfits really calls back to what she was wearing when she first starting talking back to Melbourne (when she had the crazy bow). Victoria's life is just full of tense carriage rides with people she used to trust.

Funny how risking your life for someone can make all other problems seem kind of petty.

Premature mourning clothes. Period.

Victoria tells Melbourne about the attempt. Melbourne tells Victoria as a friend that even though he and Albert don't get along, he really feels like she made the right choice in marrying him.

Green again because although she's talking with Melbourne, it's about personal things and not politics. This is the dress she expelled Sir John from the castle in but I don't think there's any real importance there.
Side note, I dig those lace gloves. Even though the amount of lace she wears decreases over time, there are still minor touches of it in so many of her dresses.

When Victoria finally decides to put in a lot of effort to make Albert feel like he is a part of her job as well as her personal life, she is wearing purple. She has trusted her own instincts as queen and that lead her to essentially promoting him in her work life instead of just her personal life.

Victoria establishes a possibly begrudging sort of peace with her mother in the darkest pink yet. Perhaps the darkening of the pinks is not a sign of things getting worse so much as it's a sign of her maturing on the situation.

And we have our happy ending (sort of)!

This isn't a personal color or a political color. It's the color of the jewels in her crown. This is when she has finally become worthy of wearing her own crown.

Why Lana Del Rey?: A Music Analysis

This is a question I have asked myself every day for the past week as I got into my car to go to work and I realize that her CD is playing in my car. It's not like someone put it there for me; I very knowingly have her CD in my CD player. I got her music and burned a CD of it for the sole purpose of playing it in my car. The thing that I am still blurry on is why I decided that I needed her music in my life and how I should feel about this decision.

Ever since hearing "Video Games" for the first time I have been unable to shake the fact that I like her music in some unexplained way but that I really feel like I shouldn't. To be clear, I looked for the song on YouTube after hearing a Hunger Games parody of it so I didn't have any knowledge about the song or the singer behind it and I still know very little. In truth, I am pretty detached from pop culture as a whole. I keep up with movies fairly well by using Flixster but the only television shows I keep up with are Community and Mad Men and I will often go days without ever turning on a TV, the only books printed in the last 30 years that I've read have been recommended to me by friends, and I know nothing of pop music outside of Todd in the Shadows (I don't even listen to the alternative station on the radio anymore). And don't even get me started on celebrities. I know nothing.

I have no judgment of Lana Del Rey, the human. I know nothing about her aside from a vague idea of what she looks like. Everything I could possibly gleam about her personality comes from her music and that alone makes me think that I would actually really not like her as a person. This fact makes listening to her feel like a guilty pleasure to me. She, or at least her persona, seems to have multiple personalities and I don't like almost all of them.

For that reason perhaps, maybe I should take this on a song by song basis of judgment. I will do this with a clear mind and without looking somewhere like songmeanings.net or her Wiki page. I certainly don't like all her songs but on the whole I like her and want to hear more from her so she must be doing something right:

Born To Die - The Paradise Edition (2012)

1. "Born To Die"

I'm pretty sure this is one of my favorite tracks on the whole album. It blends her two music styles (heavy, sad retro-ish beats with hip-hop) in a way that I really like. The lyrics aren't exactly her most memorable or her most focused but their simplicity is fine with me because it's really a mood that this song is going for more than anything. That mood is a bitterly realistic carpe diem and I totally buy it.

2. "Off To The Races"

Every fiber of my being tells me that I should hate this song. I should but I really, really don't. This is one of the least ambiguous songs on the album. It's about a party girl mess who is with this rich older guy who is her financial enabler. She messes up and he saves her and this is the essence of their love. A symbiosis of calamity. The narrator is unsympathetic and insincere about her feelings, sounding like she is the perfect manipulator and he sounds like he just wants a hot chick who depends on him. The end conclusion seems to be that this fuckery means true love because ultimately they can't be without each other.
So if the premise kind of makes me sick, why do I like this song? The wordplay. I am a sucker for good use of language and the choruses of this song are genuinely clever in their rhyme and pattern in a way that is also annoyingly catchy. It's not the prettiest song in terms of music but I just love the flow and although the premise of the song means I should hate it, I really respect how it is a complete idea and executed in a way that gives you the right atmosphere for what is being conveyed.

3. "Blue Jeans"
Having this song come after "Off To The Races" is endlessly confusing to me. This was the point I realized Lana Del Rey, at least in her music, is many people. Specifically, she's many emotionally tortured people in love. The last guy was a rich, old, cigar-smoking, gold-chain-wearing dude and this guy is a sorta-punk-rock James Dean figure in jeans and a white shirt. Essentially she went from something like this:

to this:
















Although when I hear this song, it conjures a lot of variations of the same idea:

What do you mean I have a fetish for this look? Why would you say that?
Aside from the description of the guy this song isn't particularly memorable to me. She'll love him forever but he randomly got up and left because that's what rebels without causes do. The music sounds like any of her other songs that fall on the melancholic side of the scale over the vague hip hop side.

4. "Video Games"
I have heard this song 20 times and I still have trouble figuring out what the heck it's supposed to be about. It's not the most confusing song here and it seems to be really trying to say something but I kind of struggle with what that is so here's my interpretation: This song is about distraction and attention. She loves this guy and will do anything to get his attention but he is often dismissive of her because he is so wrapped up in the joys of the modern world. She is only able to finally get him to notice her by joining in his activities and becoming just as absorbed in the superficial and distracting. Basically, she's in love with a frat boy. Or an very social nerd. I'll go read an interpretation after this and realize I'm way off but that's my idea and I'm sticking with it.
As for the tune, it's really the music itself that seems to have drawn me to Lana Del Rey in the first place and this song would be the one most responsible. A lot of the music I listen to is of the genre-blending variety and is usually about tragic love so it almost seems like this song was what I usually listen to run through a heavy pop filter.

5. "Diet Mountain Dew"

I think this song is about nothing. It's just about road tripping to New York or something. I acknowledge that this could actually be a personal inside joke or something but otherwise, the lyrics are utterly inconsequential.
Musically, there's not much of note here. It's more on the hip-hop happy side of things and there's nothing about this song that is inherently offensive but there's nothing really worth noting. If this is anyone's favorite song, I will be floored.

6. "National Anthem"
I still have no real idea what is meant by "I'm your national anthem" but in spite of this, the song still does make sense to me even if it seemed a bit jumbled the first three times I heard it. I think she's describing a one night stand interspersed with other examples of indulgence like money, drugs, and fancy things. I honestly think the chorus is really nice at the "red, white, blue" bit but I'm not a huge fan of the rap-like nature of the choruses. I can respect well-written rap and this just isn't all that impressive to me.
It's at this point in the album when I start to get exhausted by all the repeated themes and lines and wonder if there's anything else she can do since I haven't been particularly interested since the very beginning. . .

7. "Dark Paradise"
. . . And then I say thank you! This is definitely one of my favorite songs of hers. It's a little underwhelming in the beginning and the bit about the "singing your song" comes off more lazy than evocative to me but the bit before the chorus and the chorus itself are really pretty. It's the heavy sadness in her songs that drew me to her in the first place so obviously her most depressing song would be a favorite. The lyrics are obviously about a dead lover and while they are simple and not particularly unique, I just love the way she sings them and the rhythm which almost makes me think of a flowing river.

8. "Radio"
I kind of hate this one. The lyrics are silly to me and the overly sweet nature of the song is so strange when she's essentially telling this guy who she likes to like her back because she's famous now. Annoying premise, annoying style, and strange analogies that don't fully work. Cinnamon isn't really sweet. Sugar venom isn't a thing. Who licks vitamins?

9. "Carmen"
This song pretty much sucks me in from the beginning because I am a sucker for strings, especially dirge-sounding strings, and my interest in the music continues throughout the whole song even when they go away. As for the lyrics, it's nice to hear her tell someone else's fame story other than her own, especially one that is so bitterly realistic and there's actually some really good writing here. My big problem with this song is the flow of the lyrics in the choruses. Actually, maybe it's not the flow. Maybe it's her singing. Or maybe I'm not a fan of the looped voices. Something about it sounds incorrect to me. It doesn't deter me from liking the song but I cringe a bit during the "laughs like God" line.

10. "Million Dollar Man"
This was kind of the song I was waiting for from finding Lana Del Rey: a straight up throwback song. I think this is some of her best singing (or at least most controlled) and everything about this song kind of makes me happy that it exists. My one problem with this song is her pronunciation of "flower" in the first line. Pains me every time.

11. "Summertime Sadness"
I don't really know if this song makes sense but I think it's supposed to be more of a feeling song like "Diet Mountain Dew". Point is: it achieves it's goal perfectly and I love listening to it. Who cares about the flaws (okay, the stutter trend in music makes me angry but still)?

12. "This Is What Makes Us Girls"
I really love the story telling in this song and it's really strong lyrically. It's not a very unique song musically, especially at this point in the album, but I think it's a really great end to the album if you don't have any of the extended stuff. While I kind of disagree with the thesis of the song, it is kind of the perfect thesis for the album as a whole which is why it fits so well at the end. Almost every song is about a tortured romance of some sort but this one is about friendship and how it can get ruined or pushed to the side in pursuit of love. I see what you did there, Lana.

13. "Without You"
This song thematically is kind of a response to "Radio" that feels far more honest. It's pretty much about, screw the fame because it means nothing without you. It's not sugar-coated in any way and it's actually very desperate. I'll take this one over "Radio" any day.

14. "Lolita"
This song for me is a case of, "I see what you were trying to achieve with this song but I still hate it." This beat is utterly migraine-inducing and the childish rhymes and singing come off more creepy than clever. The message is conflicted and not like the singer is conflicted but like the lyrics don't know what they are trying to achieve. I always skip this one and think of "Gothic Lolita" by Emilie Autumn, a song with a similar idea but a million times better executed.

15. "Lucky Ones"
Hang on, everybody! This love story isn't tortured almost at all! It's happy! This song actually reminds me of a song from a musical. Hell, this song could be the last song of a musical that was a love story where the couple just couldn't get together until the very end. This is your happy ending. See, I can like happy. I just like realistic happy over something that will rot my teeth.

16. "Ride"
This is the first song on Paradise and I really think it's one of the strongest. It's got this nice folksy sound that fits well with the road tripping idea. Lana Del Rey likes to evoke feelings of "Americanness" in her songs and I feel like this one achieves that the best. It's not about fame or excess or tortured love but just about being disaffected and trying to get away with endless road ahead of you. If this song doesn't end up during the climactic scene of a movie, I will be utterly shocked.

17. "American"
This is the first of three songs that sounds to me like there was very little effort put into them. The subtext of Americana has rapidly become in-your-face text and the rest of the lyrics aside from that amusing conversation in the beginning feel like they were just tossed together. Also the beat puts me to sleep. It's not even minimal, just boring.

18. "Cola"
This is the same song, right? Just with even weirder lyrics that fit together even worse and a much better beat?

19. "Body Electric"
More random statements about herself mixed with a repetitive chorus. Is this song about anything (other than dancing maybe)? It was at this point I really wondered why there was not more effort put into this. It was churned out not long after Born to Die. I hope this isn't a prediction for the future of her music because if so this might be the last CD of hers I will have.

20. "Blue Velvet"
When I saw this song on here I laughed in joy and relief. This choice of cover is almost too spot-on. I love the original and she sings it just fine. It's not one of those covers that really changes the way you look at the original but it does it justice.

21. "Gods & Monsters"
I kind of knew I would like this song from the title. Never judge a song by its title but really, I couldn't resist. It's a typical theme of overindulgence like "National Anthem" but with far more interesting lyrics. I really love the metaphors in this song. Lana Del Rey seems to really like analogies and uses them to varying success.

22. "Yayo"

Another throwback song! I like the sound of this song but if I was standing in the recording booth I would be shouting, "Diction, please!" The lyrics are so fifties I could cry in joy. One question though: what the heck does yayo mean?

23. "Bel Air"
This is a really different sound in a lot of ways, particularly the chorus. I think the instruments are pretty but overall, I don't really know how I feel about this song aside from thinking that this isn't a great choice for the last song on an album. I'm pretty sure it's just about the singer wanting forgiveness for cheating and there's not much to say about the lyrics because it's the sound of this song that is most unique. I just don't know.


So Lana Del Rey has some songs that I really like and some that I really hate but I think ultimately, she comes out on top in my book. If nothing else, she has a very unique sound that appeals to me in a lot of ways. I like the sadness, the pain, and the bitter realism. Her lyrics are uneven and sometimes she repeats herself a lot but someone can be broken of that. I really like when she does throwback songs but I think I actually like her own personal sound more as long as she has control on how the feel of the song is supposed to blend with the lyrics. I prefer her dark beats to her hip-hop ones but there are a lot of times where they are well-suited ("Off The Races") and times where the two styles are put together ("Born To Die", "Summertime Sadness") in a way that I really like.

All in all, I have to say that I feel better about liking her now that I know why.


[**UPDATE (4/21/13): "Young And Beautiful" is perfect.]

Running Away

The first time I ran away from home I was 13 years old. I remember all of it far more distinctly than anything else that happened to me when I was 13 because the age lacked all the depression and anger of being 12 but didn't have the fun and respect associated with being 14.

I was on vacation in Cape Cod with my mother, brother, and our neighbors who had a son my age who was my best friend when we were about five. I had been swimming in the nearby lake when I decided to go back to the house. I think it was because I was either being made fun of by my brother, neighbor, and his father or because they were ignoring me and I would rather be alone if I'm going to be ignored. Back at the house my mother and neighbor's mother were sitting on the deck chatting. I had come in and told my mom why I left which instigated a fight. I don't specifically remember what the fight was about but I know that it had something to do with my mom making a statement about my personality that I believed to be false and her ignoring me when I tried to refute it. This is something I still get into fights with my mom about and I'm 23 years old.

Eventually I got so sick of her refusing to listen to me that I shouted out, "I'm leaving and I'm not going to the pond!" I waited a moment to see if this would cause a reaction and when it didn't, I made good on my promise and walked out. I followed the street past the pond, running past it quickly to avoid being seen by anyone, and then just kept on walking. I passed recently built mansion-like houses that made our family house built by my grandfather and his sons look like a hovel. I passed a surly teenager going home and a couple with a dog that I stopped to pet. I walked until the street wasn't paved anymore and I was on a dirt path. And I should note that at the time I was in my bathing suit, no shoes, and didn't have my contacts in so the world was blurry and I looked like a mess.

I walked until the path ended, the endpoint being another lake that I waded into out of curiosity and by this point I decided that I was tired and my anger had mostly dissipated. I figured the long walk back would resolve whatever remained. It was only when I got back that I realized three things:

1.) I had managed to walk into the next town. Cape Cod does have fairly small towns but it was still quite an accomplishment.

2.) I had been gone over four hours.

3.) My mother hadn't heard me correctly and had called the police.

I returned just as the police car was pulling into the driveway and I was treated to a shouting fit by my mother who demanded that I put some clothes on and get in her car. I was confused since in my mind I had told her exactly what I was doing and had given her the chance to stop me. Then I hyperventilated thinking that she was going to drive me all the way home as punishment.

Instead she drove me to a cafe, got me a frozen hot chocolate, and cried at the table about how she thought I had been killed while telling me about the murder of a lifeguard not much older than me in Truro a few years back. Then she took me to an art show.

Unrelated but my mother has weird ways of coping when I do something she thinks in wrong. One time when my best friend and I had kept her up all night by talking in the living room until dawn, she found us together in the morning, freaked out thinking we were having sex and I was apparently going to get pregnant and drop out of school (silly things both because I have had a sufficient sex education, I had just graduated from school so dropping out wasn't really an option, and he and I weren't having sex anyway), and reacted to all of this by shouting at me and then taking us to breakfast. A few months later, she decided that she liked him so much, I should marry him even though, as I said, we were not together.

The point is, this running away from home was the first time I got a taste of wanderlust and ever since then I feel like I have been trying to escape further and further. When I was younger I did similar things but they were not as drastic: exploring the woods, walking to a friend's house without telling my mom, etc. But this was the first time I got really far and felt like I had succeeded at traveling.

By definition, I was kind of a good kid. I didn't do drugs or drink before college or get very drunk even now. I kept any aspects of a love life secret and didn't let it control my life. I always did my homework without being asked ever since I started school. I made friends who were sometimes not the best people but who were always polite to my mother in a genuine way. But here's the thing: I was so fiercely independent a lot of the time that I didn't let any boundaries hold me down. I always did whatever I felt like doing. I always felt safe doing things on my own when my mother thought I needed to be protected. And this has been a constant frustration for her as recently as last summer.

After my running away stint, I started walking every time I was upset. I would leave the house, usually not telling anyone, and would just walk until I felt better. I would try to find new things every time I walked.

As I've gotten older and my freedoms expanded, I have been searching for more and more places to run away to. First my friends started driving and we would start traveling around the state. Then I went to college almost two hours away and learned how to use public transportation to get me where ever I could afford to go. If I wanted to run away to New York, I could and I did. If I wanted to run away to Syracuse, I would. As long as I had the money to go and a couch to sleep on, I would run every chance I got.

Now I'm out of college and have a steady job that enables me to run even more often. I find very little value in material purchases anymore, choosing to pay for experiences. As long as I have a car to take me to work and travel, a computer to entertain, and money to pay for gas, food, car insurance, and government loan payments, I have all I need. I hardly ever buy new clothes and I rarely buy movies, music or books since I just borrow from friends and abuse my library card. I need that extra money normal people use to buy new TVs on running away.

Last summer, I broke another boundary by running away to London. The previous Christmas the only thing on my wishlist was a passport and receiving that little book was like being gifted with the world.

This year I have run away to Boston and New York on numerous occasions (they are frequent places for me as I know people in both cities and I used to live in Boston myself) and will be running again to England, road tripping from London to Bath, Bristol, and Exeter (and possibly more) and then running off to Dublin. I'm in the process of planning another run to Washington DC and still need to fit a run to Montreal into my schedule at some point since I have wanted to do it for years.

Other people have expressed a lot of jealousy at my running, wishing they could run away as much as I do and to the places I do but the more I think about it, the more afraid I get that one day I will have nowhere to run to. I have a lot of places I can visit and couches I can sleep on but eventually I will not have enough money to get away as much as I need to. Eventually the places I want will be unfeasible and the thought of being stuck in suburbia with too many things boxing me in scares me.

You may think, if that kind of life scares you, why don't you avoid it? The fact is, while I may manage to escape a lot I have college loans to pay, I work at a job where I don't make much and there is very little room for promotion, and I still live at home. Every day I get up and go to my suburban job and think, what if I never find a way out and I am only able to remain sane because of my running? That's all that supporting me now. What about in five years when my paycheck can't support the distance I need to travel to feel okay again?

And what if I do get out? What if I manage to move to Boston or some other city that feels more free than here and then I lose a place to run because it has become my new prison?

Will I ever be happy in one place again?