Norman Fucking Rockwell! opens with its title track (stylized as "Norman fucking Rockwell," which is typical of the album as many of the song titles are capitalized in unconventional ways, which does kind of annoy me if I am being honest since it's inconsistent). I love this song for multiple reasons. I love its opening line: "Goddamn, man-child, you fucked me so good, I almost said, 'I love you'" (which might be my favorite opening line of any of her albums so far), and I love its waltzy piano and subtle harp accompaniment. It is a beautiful and slightly jazzy song about a relationship (or fling) with a pretentious know-it-all. The song never actually mentions the song title, but I seem to recall Lana saying in an interview once that the album title was inspired by a guy whom she actually knew who thought that he was "Norman fucking Rockwell" even though he definitely was not, so it is pretty clear that this song is about that same guy. The man in the narrative of the song also seems to be a poet (and perhaps not as good of a poet as he thinks that he is): "Your poetry's bad, and you blame the news... Self-loathing poet..." The second and third tracks on NFR! are "Mariners Apartment Complex" and "Venice Bitch," both of which, as mentioned already, were released last summer. Since I already reviewed them, I don't have much to say about them now, but I will say that (a) "Mariners Apartment Complex" has grown on me a lot, and I like it a lot more now than I did last year when I first heard it, and (b) part of me kind of wishes that she had not released "Venice Bitch" last year because it is, in my opinion, the best that the album has to offer; while there are definitely other highlights, nothing (with maybe the exception of "The greatest") matches the raw emotion and atmosphere of "Venice Bitch." We then get "Fuck it I love you" which was released as a single alongside "The greatest." "Fuck it I love you" is one of the more upbeat songs on the album (although that isn't really saying a whole lot because the album is overall very downbeat and melancholy, which is hardly new when it comes to Lana Del Rey). Although it's certainly not "Off to the Races" or "High by the Beach" kind of upbeat, it's upbeat for Norman Fucking Rockwell!. The chorus has a bit of a trip-hop beat to it as well as a dreamy, wistful accompaniment, and I love its catchy chorus. It was a wise choice as a single, for sure, and I love its nods to old songs such as "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and "California Dreamin'." The fifth track on NFR! is the Sublime cover, but given that I have already reviewed that, I, once again, don't have much to say - just that, as I believe that I mentioned in my review of the single, I am still bothered by the fact that Lana did not change the pronouns used in the original version of the song. It makes it feel a lot less personal. While I get that it's a cover, it should still fit with her narrative, and I just feel like it really doesn't; it feels kind of out of place on the album.
While I by no means whatsoever hate it or even dislike it, I would not necessarily consider "Love song" to be much of a highlight for me. Del Rey previewed a snippet of the song in January of this year, and fans believed the song to be titled "In Your Car," but that was obviously incorrect (although a good guess, considering the fact that we had only heard the opening verse and not the chorus). In the chorus of "Love song," Lana mentions being in a party dress when she sings, "Lying on your chest in my party dress," and not only was I not at all surprised by this line, I was honestly just a tad annoyed by it. I even joked once in a Lana Del Rey fan group of which I am part on Facebook that fans would have fun playing a drinking game in which we listen to a bunch of her songs and take a drink every time that she mentions a party dress. It is a term that has been mentioned so often throughout her songs that it has gotten to a point at which it has kind of lost meaning and just become a gag or a joke, but I digress. There is one small part of the song that reminds me of the iconic hit "Wonderwall" by Oasis, which is when she sings that "it all comes back to me..." in the chorus. The melody there is nearly identical to the part of "Wonderwall" when the lead singer sings, "...would like to say to you..." There is another track on the album that also reminds me a great deal of an older song (even more than this one reminds me of "Wonderwall"), and while I will wait until I get to discussing that song before I reveal which one and which song that it reminds me of, I want to offer the disclaimer that if and when I find similarities between two songs by different artists, it is not meant to be negative criticism. I am by no means whatsoever saying that Lana ripped anyone off or should be sued for copyright infringement or anything at all like that. I am simply pointing out observations of my own - songs that I was personally reminded of, and the similarities probably aren't even intentional (although I do think that the other one that I will discuss might have been a deliberate nod and respectful homage, but, again, I will get to that later). "Love song" is a slow ballad backed by piano (which honestly describes quite a few NFR! tracks, and I love the fact that she incorporates more piano than usual on this album) and strings, and I especially love the strings in the intro of the song.
The seventh track on Norman Fucking Rockwell! is a track titled "Cinnamon Girl" (a term first referenced - and probably not coincidentally so - in her unreleased track "Summer of Sam"), a track that I love but also find to be a tad overrated considering the fact that I have seen a lot of fans cite it as their favorite Norman Fucking Rockwell! track. It is far from being my favorite song on the album, but there are definitely a lot of aspects of it that I absolutely love. I, for example, really love the lyrics of the chorus: "There's things I want to say to you, but I'll just let you live, like if you hold me without hurting me, you'll be the first who ever did." There is so much sheer power in those words, as Lana (to me, at least) is saying that if she were to tell her lover what she wants to say, then the bite and the venom of her words would likely kill him. I also love her clever use of cinnamon as a metaphor (something that she also does on the Born to Die track "Radio" when she sings that "my life is sweet like cinnamon, like a fucking dream I'm living in"). Cinnamon is interesting because it is sweet and is even sometimes used as a sweetener, but it's also very bitter if taken in large quantities. (Ever tried the cinnamon challenge, anyone?) The metaphor of being sweet but with a bitter bite is rather obvious and not a first for Lana Del Rey. She opens the title track on Ultraviolence, for example, with, "He used to call me DN. That stood for Deadly Nightshade 'cause I was filled with poison but blessed with beauty and rage." "Cinnamon Girl" reminds me a great deal of the sound on most of Born to Die, with the exception that the piano being the base is ultimately a new sound for her. (She has, of course, used piano on songs before but never as prominently as she does on Norman Fucking Rockwell!.) The trip-hop beat in the chorus and the lyrical content, however, takes me right back to Born to Die. My favorite part of "Cinnamon Girl," however, is definitely the short piano outro - a beautiful melody played on the higher end of the piano over a trip-hop beat and electronic blips and bleeps. I totally and completely understand why so many people love the song but do, as I said, find it to be a bit overrated (generally speaking) because as much as I love it, I definitely don't see it as the best that Norman Fucking Rockwell! has to offer, and I have seen a lot of fans say that it is their favorite, but to each their own.
I was initially pretty disappointed when I first heard "How to disappear" because Lana had already performed the song live on piano, and the version that is on Norman Fucking Rockwell! is wildly different from the version that she performed live. The version that she performed live is much quieter and acoustic, whereas the album version has a beat and a waltzy rhythm added to it. While I do still think that it's better suited as a quieter and more muted song, I have also come to really love this version because of its '50s-esque rhythm. The song's lyrics are typical of Lana's usual topics. The song seems to be touching upon a man addicted to substances, a man whom she loves despite the drug use and despite the fact that he will always choose drugs over her. (She heavily explores this narrative especially on Ultraviolence.) "I watched the guys getting high," she sings, "as they fight for the things that they hold dear to forget the things they fear. This is how to disappear." I once saw a fan suggest that the song was referring to suicide in disappearing, but I don't think that the song supports that at all. It is pretty clear to me that she is referring to the men disappearing from her life, both initially in that they aren't emotionally there with her and finally when they actually leave: "All of the guys tell me lies, but you don't. You just crack another beer and pretend that you're still here." The song is lyrically so heartbreaking because she is there saying that at least such men don't lead her on; she is aware of what she signs up for, and it's also a heartbreaking song because she dreams of eventually breaking this habit and finding something more permanent and less toxic: "Now it's been years since I left New York. I've got a kid and two cats in the yard, the California sun and the movie stars. I watch the skies getting light as I write, as I think about those years, and I whisper in your ear, 'I'm always going to be right here. No one's going anywhere.'" In that sense, I kind of think of the song as a sister song to "Venice Bitch" because Lana seems to be dreaming about the same future in that song: "You're in the yard; I light the fire, and as the summer fades away (nothing gold can stay), you write, I tour; we make it work. You're beautiful, and I'm insane. We're American-made." Something that I will discuss in a bit more detail later on is that Lana seems to do that rather frequently on Norman Fucking Rockwell! - dreaming of a future when she can live the American dream with someone whom she loves and with someone who loves her. My only complaint with "How to disappear" is that I don't think that her vocals are loud enough; some of the instrumental really drowns her out, which is one of several reasons why I prefer the stripped back live version.
We then get "California," a slow and soft rock song featuring guitar, piano, and strings. I felt rather indifferent about it at first but eventually came to love it. This is one of many songs that Lana had already previewed online with a snippet long before the album release. Because we had only heard a small snippet, the song was nicknamed "Be Stronger" because of the opening lyrics: "You don't ever have to be stronger than you really are." I think that, in part at least, Lana might be referring to her fans when she sings this. She does, however, eventually make it clear that she is (also) addressing someone whom she personally knows, and I have seen it speculated that it could be her ex-boyfriend Barrie-James O'Neill. Lana sings in the chorus of the song, "If you come back to America, just hit me up 'cause this is crazy love; I'll catch you on the flipside. If you come back to California, you should just hit me up." After Del Rey and O'Neill split, O'Neill went back to his home country of Scotland, and Del Rey moved from New York to California. O'Neill later tweeted (a tweet which has since been deleted) that he was "having a beer. I still love her," so it does seem very likely that she is addressing him in this song, especially since she nods to the Ultraviolence b-side "Flipside" (a song that I have seen rumored to be about O'Neill) in the chorus. We then get "The Next Best American Record" (having been previously known as "Best American Record" and then "Architecture"), a soft acoustic rock song that starts off on low, almost eerie strumming acoustic guitar. A recycled song from the Lust for Life sessions, this is another song that I suspect being about Barrie-James because of its references to the lover also being a musician (as he is the frontman of Scottish band Kassidy): "We were so obsessed with writing the next best American record." In the original version of the song that leaked during the Lust for Life era, Lana sings in the chorus, "You did it all for fame. Tell me how it treats you now," and that leads me to also suspect that the song could be about her ex G-Eazy (rapper). She drastically changed the lyrics of the chorus (and consequently the meaning of the song) for the NFR! version, however. This chorus is instead, "Whatever's on tonight, I just want to party with you..." This version is much less angry and bitter and more of a happy love song, and although I do prefer the original version, I quite enjoy this one, as well, especially since other than those lyrics, it surprisingly remains mostly unaltered from the Lust for Life demo that leaked.
"The greatest," is, without a doubt, my second favorite song on Norman Fucking Rockwell! (the first being "Venice Bitch"). It is gorgeous and epic and just big-sounding (for lack of a better term). Dare I implement a really bad pun and say that it is one of the greatest songs that she has ever written and recorded? Not only is the song amazing, but its video (which, as mentioned before, is the latter half of a double music video featuring "Fuck it I love you" and "The greatest") makes it even better. It is so beautiful and visually stunning, and I have absolutely loved the visuals that this album has had to offer, even the vintage and minimalist "Mariners Apartment Complex" and "Venice Bitch" music videos. The somewhat Beatles-esque "The greatest" features guitar, piano, strings, percussion, and so much more and is definitely, as previously stated, one of the biggest and grandest songs that she has ever done. (I cannot stress that enough.) NFR! is filled to the brim with cultural references - references to the Rolling Stones, the Mamas and the Papas, Norman Rockwell (obviously), and so many more, and we hear not one but two in "The greatest." The first is near the beginning of the song when Lana sings, "I miss the bar where the Beach Boys would go, Dennis' last stop before Kokomo." I actually immediately recognized the shout-out because "Kokomo" is probably my favorite song by the Beach Boys, although what I hadn't initially recognized (and only eventually did because of Genius) is that Kokomo is a fictional and dream-like island essentially created by the Beach Boys and that Dennis Wilson passed away from drowning due to alcohol intoxication, so there is so much power in what Lana is saying here. She is referring to Kokomo as a paradise, a peaceful afterlife. She is such a poet which is one reason why I love her. (She has, in fact, written a poetry anthology titled Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, but it seems to be unreleased as of yet because I cannot find anywhere to purchase it.) The second allusion in "The greatest" is to David Bowie's song "Life on Mars?" when she sings, "'Life on Mars?' ain't just a song." The irony here is so clever (like I said, she is a poet) because the original Bowie song is about art being a representation of reality and therefore not much of an escape, and Lana is here saying that the song is not just a song but a reflection of current reality because of the fact that colonizing Mars in the distant future might become a reality due to the fact that we are slowly killing our planet. Lana is clearly a Bowie fan, as she also references his song "Space Oddity" in her Honeymoon song "Terrence Loves You" when she sings, "Ground control to Major Tom."
As much as I absolutely adore the melody which builds up to an epic climax, however, my favorite part of "The greatest" is its lyrics to which I highly relate. In the chorus of the song, Del Rey sings, "Don't leave; I just need a wake-up call. I'm facing the greatest, the greatest loss of them all." Norman Fucking Rockwell! might be Lana's most quotable album to date. There are so many stellar lyrics that hit you right in the feels, more so than ever before, and from a lyrics standpoint, it is definitely her best album so far. That line in the chorus particularly hit me hard because the most difficult ordeal of my life was when my ex left me five years ago. It was definitely my greatest loss and affected who I am today deeply in so many ways, some of them negative and some of them positive. The song also invokes this vehement sense of nostalgia in me, especially since Lana herself is singing about nostalgia: "I miss New York, and I miss the music. Me and my friends, we miss rock 'n' roll. I want shit to feel like it used to." This is another line to which I strongly relate because there are many aspects of my life now that make me feel indifferent, things that would have caused utter euphoria years ago, and that has primarily been a result of having been hurt so badly by the person whom I loved and trusted most in the world. This album review is not about me, however, so I digress. I am just making the case that this song so violently (but also beautifully) pulls at my heartstrings, and I cannot express how much that I love it strongly enough. Some fans, after hearing NFR!, worried that NFR! was Lana's farewell album, that she was retiring from music after this album, and I think that some of the lyrics from "The greatest" are why they were suffering from that worry. In the song, Lana wistfully sings, "The culture is lit, and if this it, I had a ball. I guess that I'm burned out after all." She also refers to "signing off after all," which is somewhat similar to how she sings "Signing off, bang bang kiss kiss" in "Venice Bitch." However, this was not the first time that fans were worried about such a thing. People said the same thing back when Honeymoon was released in 2015 because of songs such as "God Knows I Tried" (which is about the toll that fame has had on her, which she also touches upon in Lust for Life's "13 Beaches") and "Swan Song" (in which she sings that she will "never sing again"). The fear obviously turned out to be unfounded, as has this one, since she has already announced that the next album (titled White Hot Forever) will be out next year.
I would imagine that Lana will someday retire from music. One way or another, she unfortunately can't be a musician forever, but I don't think that it is going to happen in the near future. It is, however, clear from several of her songs that fame has not always been pleasant to her, especially since she has faced a lot of scrutiny over the years from the media regarding how authentic that her vintage style has or has not been, which she touches upon in the Ultraviolence song "Brooklyn Baby" when she sings, "They think I don't understand the freedom land of the '70s." She does seem to dream of a future in which she lives a more "normal" life in seclusion with the love of her life, but it is also not necessarily her career from which she wants to be "signing off." It could be a relationship or a chapter of her life. What I will admit, however, is that in many ways, "The greatest" does seem to offer some kind of finality, and for that reason, I think that it should have been the closing track. Moving on, however, the twelfth track on NFR! is titled "Bartender," and I love the persistent and fluttering piano as well as the harp accompaniment, and I love the melody of the chorus of the song which does remind me a great deal of a considerably older song. Yes, "Bartender" is the song to which I was referring earlier when I said that there was another song other than "Love song" that reminded me of another song. Parts of the melodies between this song and Leonard Cohen's "Take This Waltz" are noticeably similar, really just in the chorus of "Bartender." This is one, however, that I think could be intentional as a respectful nod to the late Mr. Cohen. Del Rey is clearly a Cohen fan because she has covered "Chelsea Hotel No 2" (a song also seen on the jukebox in the "Fuck it I love you & The greatest" music video) and possibly references his song "I'm Your Man" in "Mariners Apartment Complex." Both songs also begin somewhat similarly lyrically. Cohen's song begins with "Now in Vienna, there's ten pretty women," and "Bartender" begins with "All the ladies of the Canyon wearing black to their house parties." As mentioned, NFR! is lousy with cultural references, and two more can be heard in "Bartender." Near the beginning of the song, Del Rey sings that "Crosby, Stills and Nash is playing" and then soon after sings that "sometimes, girls just want to have fun." Crosby, Stills and Nash are a classic rock band that debuted in the late '60s and are probably best known for their song "Ohio," and "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" is a song by Robert Hazard from 1979 which Cyndi Lauper then made famous with her cover of it in 1983.
The penultimate song on NFR! is "Happiness is a butterfly." This is one of the songs to which I was most looking forward because of the snippet that was previously teased. I love the melody and the heart-wrenching lyrics in the chorus when Del Rey sings, "If he's a serial killer, then what's the worst that can happen to a girl who's already hurt? I'm already hurt. If he's as bad as they say, then I guess I'm cursed." I don't believe that Del Rey is literally referring to a serial killer but rather someone who habitually hurts his lovers. It's no secret that (if her lyrics can be trusted as always being autobiographical) Del Rey seems to be attracted to bad boys, something made all too clear due to songs such as "Bad Boy," "Off to the Races," "Diet Mountain Dew," "Ultraviolence," "How to disappear," and so many others. Madonna perhaps says it best in the opening monologue of her "Crave" music video: "Don't we all want what we know is not good for us, what we know might break us in the end? And yet, we fly towards it, always wanting the thing we cannot have." Del Rey poetically refers to happiness being a butterfly in that it is fleeting and difficult to catch: "Try to catch it, like, every night. It escapes from my hands into moonlight." It's such a beautiful and soothing piano ballad and definitely a highlight on the album. The album then closes with "hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but i have it" which I have already reviewed, so I will just say that I don't like that it's the closing track. It, in my opinion, doesn't make for very effective closure, and "The greatest" should have been the closing track. Although, as I said, nothing really matches the unique essence of "Venice Bitch," I, all in all, absolutely adore this album. It's definitely her best album since Ultraviolence and definitely her strongest lyrically, and I love how so much of it is piano-driven. It is also possibly her most assertive album thus far, as Lana is claiming agency in most of the songs rather than passivity as she often has in the past. (The opening line of "goddamn, man-child" makes that pretty evident.) I also love the album cover; featuring Duke Nicholson (Jack Nicholson's grandson) at Lana's side with Lana wearing a neon green shirt with neon green nails to match, it's definitely my favorite LDR album cover to date. The neon green has been a frequent visual for NFR!, as bright neon green is seen in the sky and on Lana's nails in the "Fuck it I love you & The greatest" double music video, and Lana even mentions it at the beginning of "Fuck it I love you" when she sings, "I like to see everything in neon, drink lime green..." NFR! was definitely worth the long wait, as it is definitely the album of 2019 so far (for me, at least).
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