Lana Del Rey's Honeymoon: Album Review

After the release of Ultraviolence just last year, Lana Del Rey left her fandom immediately wanting more. Her dark but melodic tone displayed in many of the songs on the album haunted and healed fans and converted many to the Lana fandom. 

And here we are again being swayed and hypnotized by Lana's new album Honeymoon, released September 18th, 2015. The album is everything we expected from Lana and more. She explores a much deeper artistic side than what we previously have seen from earlier albums. While Honeymoon might not attract new fans who are accustomed to listening to mainstream hits by Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj, the abulm is a pleasant delight for Lana's current loyal fanbase.

1) The release of the mediocre title track left fans questioning whether the whole album would be as "bland" as the song Honeymoon. While the song may seem as if it lacks depth and a melodic tune, it is much more of a lyric driven song than a melody driven one-- as many of her songs are. This one just happens to be more extreme. Overall rating: 5

2) But fans became accustomed to the song just in time for the single High By The Beach to be released. While the tempo was more upbeat and more energetic, there was still a rather dazing affect to the lyrics and her voice. The sophisticated use of profanity was a classy and pleasant slap in the face-- Lana is one of the only artists who can curse and still appear classy. The song is accompanied by a mysterious video that left fans questioning and theorizing the symbolic meaning behind it. Many have concluded it is about Lana's desire to escape from paparazzi. Overall rating: 8

The rest of the album is typical Lana Del Rey (that is a good thing) with its hazy tunes, haunting melodies, and dark lyrics but still, the album is like a breath of fresh air for fans. 

3) Music To Watch Boys To is soft and dreamy, and like High By The Beach, it consists of a higher tempo than the majority of the songs on the album. Also, similar lyrics from the song Ultraviolence can by found in Music To Watch Boys To  as she refers to lemonade as "golden" or "gold." The song is a favorite among many and I find myself listening to it over and over again as it is somewhat hypnotizing and surreal. It is an overall brilliant song. Overall rating: 10 

4) Terrence Loves You is sorrowful and likely about a loss or break-up. It has a jazzy essence, however, and Lana chosses to associate the song with the color blue-- similar to Shades of Cool. The song also displays Lana's soprano side with mystical, high-pitched hums. The piano in the background completes the soulful ballad. Overall rating: 7

5) Lana states that the song God Knows I Tried is very close to her heart. We can see this is in the confessional and desperate lyrics of repetition. It is one of the slower songs of the album and it is very obvious the song was written from a low or dark place in Lana's life. Overall rating: 6

6) Freak displays a significant amount of poetic imagery as she paints a picture of the sights around her. The feel is very similar to West Coast from Lana's Ultraviolence album. The tempo is drousy and the melody is dazing, making the song another one of Lana's more hypnotizing works. Overall rating: 9

7) Art Deco, is fresh and swaying, being that it is a very original melody with a nostalgic feel. Perhaps because it gives similar vibes to her song West Coast, a rather chilly melody with warm lyrics. The vibrant hums and laid-back tune is the perfect escape from your surroundings as Lana takes you to a new world with Earthly lyrics. Overall rating: 9 

8) Burnt Norton gives a celestial feeling interlude in which Lana recites a TS Eliot's poetic message about time. Lana makes it clear that she is a skilled poetry reader in this track, a surprisingly hard task to master. The interlude is very much other-worldly sounding and a pleasant break of the album. Overall rating: 8

9) One could say the lyrics of Religion describe Lana's music as a whole. She is referring to the love of a man as her religion as in she worships him. Lana is known to show submission and dedication to certain men in her life if her lyrics hold true to her real life. The song offers a nice tune and would be a beautiful acoustic. Overall rating: 7

10) The Blackest Day is another break-up song. It is not a typical break-up song, however. Unlike typical popular break-up songs today, The Blackest Day is not about looking for revenge or belittling the ex-partner. This is perhaps why Lana Del Rey can get away with so many break-up/sad songs. It has a soulful blues feel to it... and it's catchy. The final 2 minutes of the song are breath-taking and it's no wonder why I can listen to this song all day on repeat and why it is a fan favorite. This song is best listened to via record. Overall rating: 10

11) 24 is a slower ballad which feels like it's from the vintage 40's. Most of Lana's music gives that vibe, but this one does especially. It gives a similar sound to the slow and sultry title track Honeymoon. It does not necessarily stand out compared to the other songs on the album, however, and I have to give this one a thumbs down. Overall rating: 4

12) When I first saw the title of the song Swan Song, I immediately thought of the band Within Temptation, whom the lead singer, Sharon, is actually friends with Lana. Within Temptation has a beautiful song written over ten years ago titled Swan Song. Because of this, I expected the song to have a similar sound to WT's, but it is completely different. While it does have a charming, well developed tune, it lacks depth, but nonetheless goes with the overall sound of the album. Overall rating: 6

13) Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood is a pleasant ending to the album. I believe it was placed at the end as a subtle hint that Lana does not want her previous songs to be interpreted in a negative manner. It is a short song with a classic Noir sound mixed with an 80's rock vibe. I'm the only person so far, however, who has described the song in this way. It is indeed a cover of Nina Simone's Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood from the 60's. Overall rating: 6

14) And finally we have come to Salvatore, which I saved for last because it is arguably the best track on the album, and arguably one of her top 5 best songs of all time. I am not being biased because I adore the song, however. After the release, fans have tweeted and posted about how beautiful Salvatore is. Its Italian theme, haunting but hypnotizing melody of a past time, and interesting but subjective lyrics together complete the song as perfection. Lana's speaking of Italian is pleasant to the ears and Salvatore is sang more like a beautiful lullaby than anything else. Overall rating: 10 

Lana Del Rey's album Honeymoon reminded fans of why they love and adore her. It is haunting, melodic, other-worldly, and dark-- the perfect combination of an A+ album. Congrats, Lana, you did it again and we all commend you for your beautiful creation. 

Now let's all have tangerine dreams.

Past Lives and the Infinite Soul

Whenever I casually bring up the idea of what I might have been in a past life or the fact that I am a very old soul, friends and family immediately stop taking me seriously. 

The same friends and family who believe that we do indeed have a soul and that our souls continue to live after our physical bodies die. Most believe that the soul goes to Heaven for all of eternity. 

I believe souls find a new home after each death. The body is just a shell or a vehicle of the soul. The body can be destroyed, but the soul will remain. So this soul will continue to reincarnate into other physical shells until the soul is ready for the divine afterlife to live with God in paradise. 

If the timing of the world is infinite, and the Universe is infinite, why is it that most people believe we only get to experience a small fraction of its infinicy? If you compare the average lifespan of 80 years to the age of the Universe, we're really only really living on Earth for 0% of the time. Anything measured with infinity is zero, simply because, there is no comparison. 

0 percent? Do we even exist? Are we real? Yes we are. Our souls, at least, are. The soul is your energy. It's your feelings, your love, and your wisdom. The soul is that ball of energy that ~most~ religions believe ascend to Heaven/Paradise/Nirvana/The Afterlife or whatever you wish to call it. 

I believe in Heaven. But I also believe it takes a while for our soul to reach that sacred home of paradise. 

Astral Projection

Astral projection has been deemed a real thing. This is the idea that when you are sleeping, you give your soul the opportunity to roam freely outside of your body. Your body, while asleep is still able to breathe and swallow, etc because that is performed by the brain. But when one astral projects, the soul leaves the body and can watch its body sleep or roam around its house and even (for advanced Astral Projectors) travel far distances beyond the walls of its sleeping body. 

This is how many people claimed to have watched themselves sleeping or have seen other souls around the vicinity of their travels. 

The movie Insidious plays with the act of Astral Projection in a sinister way (it's a great movie!) so in case you're still confused with AP, refer to that film. 

Strange Memories?

Being that the soul is endless, similar to the universe and eternity, we, as infinite souls, have the option of deciding when and where we want to go next after our current physical shell dies.

This is why people remember their past lives. This is why people get Deja Vu. It's also why people can feel attracted to a certain time period in history or see an old doll, some China, or even an old watch from an antique shop and feel connected to it somehow. Maybe you had one similar in another life. Maybe it was that exact one. 

Introversion vs Extroversion in Relation to the Age of the Soul

There is a theory I once read that people who are more introverted and quiet are among the older souls (simply meaning a soul which has lived a greater amount of Earthy physical lives). 

This is because these older souls have lived so far in the past, have made so many connections with other souls as humans they have lost, that they feel unconnected to the present, longing to live in one of their many other lives, and that they are afraid to connect with more humans because they know they are eventually going to lose them just as they have lost many others. 

Extroverts are often younger souls. They could have lived only a couple lives or the present life they're in could in fact be their very first life. These people are more open to the world and people around them. They're not as much into history or antiques as the average introvert or old soul but they are more open and prone to follow the modern culture of their time-- such as the latest music, dancing, electronics, and styles of the present.  

Be Open

Past lives are fun to think about. If you believe you possess a soul and that soul carries on into an afterlife when the body dies, you should not completely dismiss the idea of past lives and reincarnation. If your mind allows you to even believe in souls and in Heaven, then your mind should also be able to accept other mystical ideas such as magic, mythical creatures, the supernatural (ghosts and hauntings) and many other ideas on afterlives and other realms. Anything is possible with a magical and powerful god and an infinite soul.

Life on Other Planets

When we think of our friend moving to a different state or country, we feel as if they're on the other side of the universe. 

When children are in a hurry to grow up and feel like it's taking them centuries to make it to twenty-one or when we're sometimes forced to read history from 200 years back but don't understand why it's relevant because it all happened "forever ago" are the times when we've got it all wrong.

I introduce you to the Universe-- where infinity of time and distance calls its home. (If you think Earth is big, you're in for a wild ride!)

Let's start with the sun, a star. Our star. Our planet's source of heat. One million, three hundred thousand (that is, 1,300,000) Earths can fit inside the sun. That is a LOT of Earths! 

But the sun is microscopic compared to the larger picture of the universe.

Here is an example of how small the Sun is compared to the star Arcturus:

Besides the sun, the next nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.37 light years from us. If you're unfamiliar with light years, I'll make it easy for you and skip the math. 1 light year is equivalent to 5,880,000,000,000 miles. Or 5.88 trillion miles. (Source: Light Year in Miles). So, multiply that number by 4.37 and we have the amount of miles away our star neighbor actually is. 

If the fastest space shuttle travels at a speed of 35,000 miles per hour (that's FAST), it would still take 81,000 years to reach the nearest star. EIGHTY-ONE THOUSAND YEARS. And that is nearest star.

Alas, there are even farther stars away, that are actually billions of light years away- much more than just 4.37. Your friend may be a thousand miles away, but it's truly as if he or she is right next door compared to the Universe around you.

Check out this video by Buzzfeed that gives a great visual image of just how small we really are:

With this being said, there are trillions of stars in the sky, each trillions of miles apart from one another, and most with their own planets orbiting around them, just like the Sun. And there are actually people out there who dismiss the idea of life on other planets. As if they know every aspect of the Universe.  

With the discovery of Exoplanets, it is highly likely that other life forms do exist elsewhere in the Universe. "Exoplanets are planets beyond our own solar system. Thousands have been discovered in the past two decades, mostly with NASA's Kepler space telescope. These worlds come in a huge variety of sizes and orbits. Some are gigantic planets hugging close to their parent stars; others are icy, some rocky." (Source:Exoplanets).

The Sun is the perfect distance from Earth to maintain life. Who's to say there isn't another star out there that also is the perfect distance from one of its planets to sustain it's own life. Oh wait, there might be.

This is an Exoplanet called Kepler 186F. It orbits around the dwarf-star Kepler 186.

Life and the world around you is bigger than you think it is. 

There is more out there than just your hometown. Take a trip out of state. Better yet, out of your country. This is the only planet you will ever have the joy of living on. Experience it. Live it. Travel it. Explore it. Take an adventure. It's the only planet we have access to and this is your only life on it. It's the closest you'll ever come to seeing the world. Don't skip out. 

(Unless of course, you're like me and believe that our souls come back after death, take a look at my blog: Past Lives and the Infinite Soul).

Hilda Doolittle: Sheltered Garden Analysis

Growing up around nature and flowers, Hilda Doolittle’s love of all that is natural shines through many of her poems as an adult such as such as “Garden,” “Last Winter,” and “Sheltered Garden” where she exhibits scenes of wonderful landscapes and Mother Earth in her writing. However, in “Sheltered Garden,” H.D. reveals a sense of displeasure among man-made flower and plant gardens. She expresses the longing for nature to take its course and sweep away all plants maintained by man.

 

"I have had enough.

I gasp for breath."
Hilda makes it clear from the beginning of the poem that she is pretty much fed up. With what, you make ask? Let's find out. 
 

"Every way ends, every road,
every foot-path leads at last
to the hill-crest—"
Here, H.D. is implying that all roads lead back to one thing. 
 

"then you retrace your steps,
or find the same slope on the other side,
precipitate."
Even if you turn around and go in another direction, you still end up finding the same thing. 


"I have had enough—
border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax-lilies,
herbs, sweet-cress."
Oh! This is what she has had enough of. Pretty flowers? That's odd. Who could get tired of wax-lilies?


"O for some sharp swish of a branch—
there is no scent of resin
in this place,"
Resin. That tree sap and natural pine scent you might smell when wandering through a wooded forest. And H.D is saying that there is none. Nor are there any dry branches "swish"ing. But it seems that this is actually the problem.

 
"no taste of bark, of coarse weeds,
aromatic, astringent—
only border on border of scented pinks."
Miss Doolittle must have a problem with pink. She is stating in these lines that she wants to "taste bark and coarse weeds." She doesn't want to smell pretty pink flowers.

 
"Have you seen fruit under cover
that wanted light—
pears wadded in cloth,
protected from the frost,
melons, almost ripe,
smothered in straw?"
"Fruit under cover" Man puts fruit under cover. "Wanted light" The fruit wants nature, instead, to nurture it. "Pears wadded in cloth--" Meaning pears touched by man-kind. 

 
"Why not let the pears cling
to the empty branch?
All your coaxing will only make
a bitter fruit—
let them cling, ripen of themselves,
test their own worth,
nipped, shrivelled by the frost,
to fall at last but fair
with a russet coat."
In this stanza, Doolittle is asking mankind to let nature take its course. To stop "coaxing" the fruit (because apparently, this makes fruit bitter). Let them cling to their branches of which they were made, let them ripen themselves. 

 
"Or the melon—
let it bleach yellow
in the winter light,
even tart to the taste—
it is better to taste of frost—
the exquisite frost—
than of wadding and of dead grass."
 Again, Hilda is expressing her opinion of the importance of nature creating and caressing the fruit, not mankind. It is after all, "better to taste of frost than of... dead grass."

 
"For this beauty,
beauty without strength,
chokes out life."
"Beauty without strength." Here she is referring to the "beauty" of a maintained garden. It might look nice, but it has no strength to stand on its own. It relies on mankind to nurture it. 
 
"I want wind to break,
scatter these pink-stalks,
snap off their spiced heads,
fling them about with dead leaves—"
Pretty much she wants to see the "wind break" and destroy that pretty garden.
 

"spread the paths with twigs,
limbs broken off,
trail great pine branches,
hurled from some far wood
right across the melon-patch,
break pear and quince—
leave half-trees, torn, twisted
but showing the fight was valiant."
And in place of it, she wants twigs, broken tree limbs, branches, etc to cover the nice flower and vegetable/fruit garden. She also wants it to be a "fight" between the "natural" nature and the man-made nature. And judging by her past lines of this poem, it's safe to say which form of nature H.D. wants to win. 


"O to blot out this garden
to forget, to find a new beauty
in some terrible
wind-tortured place."
Yep, you got it! The nice garden has to lose, to be blotted out and forgotten and to be replaced with those twigs, leaves, and branches from a couple stanzas up. She also wishes mankind would learn to find beauty in all that is natural.

The basic message of “Sheltered Garden” that H.D. is trying to convey is to see the greatness in natural beauty. She makes a very intent and clear message that she is tired of sweet-scented pink flowers and tart fruit. 

She insists on allowing fruit to naturally ripen, to not be coaxed by men but instead to “let them cling, ripen of themselves/ test their own worth/ nipped, shriveled by the frost/ to fall at last but fair,” (Doolittle 28-31). 

She also longs for the natural smell of resin and for the wind to sweep the flowers clean of their petals—for natural chaos to take effect.


This wind-swept image she creates clearly provides a more natural sensation of the outdoors as opposed to a structured and maintained garden which she resents in the poem.


Several underlying events in H.D,'s life could have impacted the true meaning and origin of this poem. H.D. was the daughter of the director of the Flower Observatory in Philadelphia. She spent many of her childhood days helping her father maintain the flower gardens of the observatory. 

Spending the majority of her youth around plants and nature, H.D.’s love for gardening and flowers grew. 

Although Poetry Foundation refers to Hilda as the favorite child of her father’s, the source later goes on to say that “Hilda wanted to be an artist like her mother. But her father forbade art school. H.D. recalled that as a child, her mother had loved to sing, but she [Hilda] never once sang after her father complained of the ‘noise’” (Poetry Foundation). 

However, this was only the beginning of a complicated relationship Hilda would experience with her father.


It was in her teenage years that her relationship with her father began to significantly dwindle after she met the poet Ezra Pound. Charles Doolittle’s disapproval of Hilda and Ezra’s relationship began when he found them “embracing” and a scandalous relationship followed. The relationship between H.D. and her father never fully recovered. 

“Sheltered Garden” could perhaps be a reference to the actual garden she bonded over with her father in her adolescent years which was always clean and maintained. Being that H.D. wants to “blot out this garden” and “to forget” (Doolittle, lines 55 and 56) perhaps means she is longing to forget spending time with her father in the flower observatory out of resentment from his lack of approval of her wanting to be an artist like her mother and of her relationship with Ezra Pound. 

This sheltered garden she refers to in the poem possibly brings back memories she does not want to remember from the ongoing conflicts with her father. 
H.D. was also known to be a proactive feminist. She was raised in a time when women were widely portrayed as weak and vulnerable and were oftentimes compared with sweet and delicate flowers—while men were thought of as the strong nature counterpart, able to withstand “harsh winds” and strong obstacles. 

A feminist’s ideal is to change this notion and show society that women too can be strong and take on “harsh winds,” unlike a delicate flower in a windstorm. By emphasizing that she has had enough of sweet and weak flowers could possibly mean she has had enough of being looked at as weak and vulnerable. With this poem, she wants to show her readers she can handle the harsh storms. 

Furthermore, although society’s view is that women are considerably the more “beautiful” of the sexes, H.D. believes that beauty is nothing without strength. She says in her poem “for this beauty/ beauty without strength/ chokes out life” (Doolittle 40-42) meaning there is no true liveliness with merely beauty. Strength and natural beauty—not created beauty—are the true essences of life which is also a point H.D. is trying to get across when she wrote “Sheltered Garden.”
Whether the reader relates the poem to H.D.’s relationship with her father or to her feminist standpoint, whichever background he or she chooses to connect to Hilda Doolittle’s personal life, one can certainly grasp the idea that in H.D.’s opinion, chaos from the natural winds and Mother Nature is clearly more beautiful than manmade perfection. Just like life, the beauty portrayed on the outside is nowhere as important as natural beauty and mayhem.

Layla Torres
B.A. of Science in English