If I’m being honest, there were few moments as formative for my music tastes over the past decade quite like summer 2013. With my ear still paying enough attention to the radio, I was aware of the big hits. Very few of them actually flattered me, but I could sing along if required to by my friends as we drove around Southern California. It was a fun time to be alive, driving aimlessly and filling up the time until college started up again. Life was simpler as a 24-year-old without much of a vision for the future.
But then I heard the Cedric Gervais remix of Lana Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness.” By most accounts, Lana Del Rey’s big breakthrough came a year prior to the viral sensation “Video Games.” It was a candid song that quickly dubbed her “The Gangsta Nancy Sinatra.” As someone who loved “The Highway Song,” it sounded like a plausible marketing point. After all, she was going to be the bad girl of pop music, rattling up feminists with lyrics that many argued romanticized domestic abuse. I would argue that it’s a surface-level reading of her work, but it was something that made her appealing, but never really broke my bubble.
It should also be noted that Lana Del Rey was also in the midst of a career-shattering moment on Saturday Night Live. Much like Ashlee Simpson a few years prior, her inability to perform well created this backlash. Suddenly those who saw her taking up a moniker and borrowing heavily from classic cinema and music began to attack her for being fake. There was nothing genuine about her. It’s even jarring just eight years later to read Rolling Stone Magazine’s two-star review of her album “Born to Die,” which suggested:
Give Lana Del Rey credit: At least she didn’t break down and cry on Saturday Night Live. She’s a starlet to music bloggers, who’ve been buzzing over her for the past year. But for the rest of us, she’s just another aspiring singer who wasn’t ready to make an album yet. Given her chic image, it’s a surprise how dull, dreary and pop-starved “Born to Die” is. It goes for folky trip-hop ballads with a tragic vibe, kinda like Beth Orton used to do. Except she could sing.
It was a brutal time, and I understand why Lana Del Rey personally has often avoided doing conventional press for her later albums. Imagine people doubting your merit to the point that they want you to curl up and die. I frankly think that the Saturday Night Live performance shifted perception of her so badly that I don’t know that she ever recovered. Oh sure, she’s gotten a strong fan base and I’ve heard “Venice Bitch” a few times now on the radio, but I don’t know that certain demographics have ever escaped their skepticism of her authenticity, or at least that she’s capable of performing live.
I suppose it’s what initially held me back from her work in 2012. When viewing the surface-level criticism and two-star reviews, you’re left thinking that your time is best spent elsewhere. Lana Del Rey would go away, to be replaced by a new phenomenon.
How foolish I was.
In one of the greatest trick shots of the year, the remix of “Summertime Sadness” gave the singer a second life. Suddenly this song full of depressing lyrics, reflective of her reminiscing on her dead friend, felt like you could blare it in a club and dance with your entire soul. You could feel the pain deep down inside and left it sweat through your pores. It still felt like a novelty, but it was an inescapable one that elevated this subdued song to higher success, relishing in the idea of seasonal affectation disorder (SAD), giving her the ultimate definition of her style.
She was the sad girl. She released albums like “Born to Die” and “Ultraviolence” that had this underlying melancholy to it. To have it subverted with this dance beat was a crazy idea that worked. I’d argue that it worked so well that she would begin incorporating rhythmic styles that complimented remixes, notably on “Lust for Life” where she partnered with artists like A$AP Rocky and The Weeknd. She had a haunting voice that worked very well with the thuds and skitters of trap music.
I say that 2013 was formative because it was the moment I finally gave Lana Del Rey a chance. Maybe I owe more credit to The Great Gatsby (2013) song “Young and Beautiful,” (one of my personal, top tier favorites), but “Summertime Sadness” gave me the faith to finally dive into her music and witness what she was doing for myself. Screw what the haters said. I wanted to discover it for myself.
She has remained my personal favorite ever since.
What I found within the substance of Lana Del Rey wasn’t an artist trying to convince us of her authenticity. She was just as much producing a vision of herself as Rihanna or Taylor Swift. When you went to her music, there were certain expectations that you had. In later years, it has become satirical, with some even ranking songs based on how “Lana Del Rey” they were. Oh sure there’s some cheekiness to being a fan of her work, where sadness and overblown, maybe even ironic depictions of misery underlined her music with such earnest payoff.
But what she does personally better than any other artist that I’ve listened to is capture a story through songs. I’d argue that “Ultraviolence” is a cinematic album, whose production has this neo-noir nature to the strings, the haunting, strained vocals creating this atmosphere. Her stories were as much personal as they were chances for her to pull from old school pop culture. She was existing in this strange middle-ground, where she could be nostalgic for the past while trying to develop a future. Even at her saddest, there was something to her songs/stories that captivated me, able to go on these four-minute journeys that were unlike anything anyone else was doing. If they were telling stories, they were too polished, reminiscent of studio-mandated Top 40-ness. I couldn’t find them anywhere near as interesting because they lacked the atmosphere, the authenticity of her style.
“Summertime Sadness” is peak Lana Del Rey for a variety of reasons. By name alone, it’s one that feels worthy of a snicker. It’s an oxymoron at its finest, especially since summertime is often associated with happiness and freedom. To be bogged down with SAD during this time makes you stand out immediately, making you wonder what’s wrong with you. That is how she stood out. Where others saw joy, she found these personal looks into her past that was painful but became cathartic once they hit wax.
Around 2013, I was friends with someone who lost his parents at a young age. While he never personally confided in me, it was clear that he felt some personal connection to the song. In a time where everyone felt happy, there was aching loneliness and feeling incomplete because somebody you loved wasn’t there. I’ve only begun to experience moments that could compare, but even then it’s not necessarily something that I associate with summer. I never feel disconnected from the world because of a personal loss quite like this. If anything, it makes the title brilliant on its own.
Another thing that I love about Lana Del Rey as an artist is how she feels genuinely infatuated with Southern California beach culture. While she wouldn’t openly embrace it for another album, there’s so much that I love about the lyrics of this song. She’s as much about the story as she is vivid detail that places you at a time. You can feel external details overwhelming you with every note. It’s most evident in the pre-chorus, which has a fantastic build improved by the awe that resonates over every note:
Oh, my God, I feel it in the air
Telephone wires above are sizzlin' like a snare
Honey, I'm on fire, I feel it everywhere
Nothin' scares me anymore
In four lines, she perfectly conveys an image that is insular and external in equal in measure. Telephone wires could be substituted for her veins. Having them sizzle like snares gives it all a musical purpose that builds anticipation. She’s on fire, whether from the hot weather or from some personal grief. Still, it shows how everything is copacetic, relating to one another. She exists in our world, but the story we’re being told is something personal, simultaneously being presented in the past and present. We’re seeing a moment reminiscent of passion but can slowly fade into this perverse reminder of the past.
The whole song is like that, and I imagine that those who understand the pain of “Summertime Sadness” better than I will recognize something greater. It’s about having a friend whose aimless driving around meant the world to you, where the summer months were full because you knew they would be there. Not having them there makes those long months feel emptier, and while you can do nothing by yourself, it isn’t the same. There’s no understanding of the inside jokes, the desire to push yourself to do stupid things. You’re alone having to find ways to not be reminded of better days.
What is strange is that, for all I know, my friend that I keep mentioning is still alive. He’s possibly even in a more successful place than when I knew him. However, due to a falling out between additional parties, I haven’t seen him in probably five years (maybe more). He’s deleted his Facebook and I wonder if it’s worth tracking him down. I doubt we’ll ever have another aimless summer driving together, but I want to know that he’s okay. I want to meet up for lunch and just talk about life, maybe recognizing how foolish we used to be and grow as people.
He isn’t the reason that “Summertime Sadness” feels formative for me, but like Lana Del Rey’s entire body of work, there is something nostalgic and cathartic. When you listen, you’re grappling with so many ideas in a single moment that you’re as drawn to heartbreak as you are the joy that these moments used to bring you. She creates this dimensional soundscape that keeps speaking to me. I can listen to “Born to Die” every other week and still feel the power of every note.
A lot of people have it turns out. Her music continues to resonate in ways that you wouldn’t expect. Even her most recent (and greatest) album, “Norman Fucking Rockwell,” features a more mature acceptance. She still is sad, but she is just as willing to recognizing the good moments in her life.
It’s only when we come to terms with the pain that we feel that we can evolve as people. For most reasonable people, there will still be numbing as we grow older. We recognize that the absence cuts off opportunities to relive a moment that felt significant at the time. However, if we’re good enough we’ll find new things to fill our lives with joy. We’ll never forget, but we can’t linger in the past. Summertime sadness can’t last forever. One day it will just be another unfortunate part of life, a distant memory that we learn and grow from, being thankful that it ever happened at all. I know that I feel that way, as torn and conflicted as I still am about some things. At least I have this music to keep me company.
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