Earlier this week I promised to return to Lana Del Rey’s new single “Henry, come on.” I didn’t feel comfortable just jumping into thought about the song, but I did identify its spiritual cousin, “How to Disappear,” from the “Norman Fucking Rockwell” album. As noted in that last essay, “How to Disappear” is one of those Lana songs where she lionizes the striving — but never quite achieving —kind of man who always falls into her orbit. It ends with an unresolved chord and a promise, outside of the rhyming scheme, to always be there, to not go anywhere.
Henry is the same kind of not-quite-a-loser, not-quite-a-success man, but nearly six years later, it’s a very different Lana. First of all, it’s obvious that it was originally conceived as a country song and, thank God, Lana chose not to follow the path of everyone else in the music industry these days. In fact, the song subverts its country expectations rather brilliantly, throwing in a powerfully reverb-driven lead vocal, a string section and even a strategically placed harp.
But there’s another surprise lurking in the song — Lana revealing herself as a deity, of sorts. She knows that she’s changed into a very different creature and she’s leaning into the meaning of her transformation:
And it’s not because of you
That I turned out so dangerous
Yesterday, I heard God say, “It’s in your blood”
And it struck me just like lightning
I’ve been fighting, I’ve been striving
Yesterday, I heard God say, “You were born to be the one
To hold thе hand of the man
Who flies too close to thе sun”
This is such a fascinating lyric. In essence she’s saying: No, Henry, I didn’t become this creature capable of ripping men’s hearts out because of something special about you. Listen up, because you probably don’t know who you are dealing with. I don’t just pray to God, he talks back to me. And when I prayed on walking out, he told me I had no choice, it was in by blood. And more than that, he told me that all my fighting and striving had a purpose, that I was destined to hold the hand of greatness, of a man who will strive so high that, like Icarus, he will fly too close to the sun before he burns.
Notice that she’s still destined to be with a man who doesn’t reach the great heights. And even though she’s an all-powerful creator of worlds, it’s still him who is taking the lead. But Henry, come on, we both know that’s not you. So hang up your cowboy hat and move along.
The song is a fascinating mix of personal wisdom and narcissistic insanity. But being a pop star would do that to anyone, I suppose.
As for me, I emotionally feel closer to the old Lana, the one who is willing to stand by no matter what. I guess it’s because I spent so much of my life in a relationship but not in love. I’m not interested in settling for anything less anymore and, by experiencing it in any form, I’m also not inclined to surrender it.
UPDATE: It’s Friday and Lana has dropped another new song, this one called “Bluebird.” I’ll get around to writing about it too — and here’s hoping that Lana Fridays becomes a semi-permanent thing.
One more thing to add about how I concluded this piece. I don’t know if I’d exactly call it wisdom, and I wouldn’t give this advice to anyone else, especially someone young. Young people should explore, experiment, get to know themselves and their wants, experience the full range of human emotions. But for me, I’ve seen what works for me and what doesn’t, and the worst thing that could happen to me is falling into another relationship just for the sake of being in one, pretending it fits. So it’s true, I would rather be in love and not in a relationship than be in a relationship but not in love. It’s better for me, it works. Would it be preferable to have both? Certainly. But you take what you can get in life. And if this is how my romantic life ends, I’m ok with that too.
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