Lana Del Rey’s big smile on the cover art of 2017’s Lust For Life is the first indication that this collection will differ from her previous work. Would the melancholy queen actually sound happy for a change?
I don’t know if I’d go that far, but this is a brighter and more optimistic record than its predecessors. Sonically, it reaches back to the hip-hop influences of Born to Die and comes the closest to a traditional pop album that Del Rey is likely going to get. She even has features on five tracks.
Those features include ASAP Rocky (who delivers rap breaks on two songs), The Weeknd, Playboi Carti, Stevie Nicks, and Sean Ono Lennon. Despite such a wide range of contributors, the tracks sound like Lana Del Rey songs more than anything else. She has a knack for blending collaborators into her vision.
Lyrically, Lust For Life touches on Del Rey’s usual obsessions as well as some new ones. Several songs reflect on fame, a topic that will show up again on future releases. Again, she name drops several musical influences, including John Lennon, Yoko One, Bob Dylan and Elton John.
This is also her most political record to date, with veiled references to tension with North Korea and other Trump-era ugliness. One track is titled ‘When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing,’ but it’s more a call to arms than a screed against apathy.
Today’s song is a beautiful ode to not giving up, a message a lot of us needed to hear in 2017. Del Rey wrote ‘Change’ at the very end of the recording process and rushed it onto the album as a piano-and-vocals track because she had no time to flesh it out in the studio. I can’t imagine it any other way.
There’s somethin’ in the wind, I can feel it blowin’ in
It’s comin’ in softly on the wings of a bomb
There’s somethin’ in the wind, I can feel it blowin’ in
It’s comin’ in hotly and it’s coming in strong
[Refrain]
Lately, I’ve been thinkin’ it’s just someone else’s job to care
Who am I to sympathize when no one gave a damn?
I’ve been thinkin’ it’s just someone else’s job to care
Who am I to wanna try? But
[Pre-Chorus]
Change is a powerful thing, people are powerful beings
Tryin’ to find the power in me to be faithful
Change is a powerful thing, I feel it comin’ in me
Maybe by the time summer’s done
I’ll be able to be honest, capable
Of holdin’ you in my arms without lettin’ you fall
When I don’t feel beautiful or stable
Maybe it’s enough to just be where we are, because
[Chorus]
Every time that we run, we don’t know what it’s from
Now we finally slow down, we feel close to it
There’s a change gonna come, I don’t know where or when
But whenever it does, we’ll be here for it
[Verse 2]
There’s somethin’ in the wind, I can feel it blowin’ in
It’s comin’ in softly on the wings of a song
There’s somethin’ in the water, I can taste it turnin’ sour
It’s bitter, I’m coughin’, but now it’s in my blood
[Refrain]
Lately, I’ve been thinkin’ it’s just someone else’s job to care
Who am I to sympathize when no one gave a damn?
I’ve been thinkin’ it’s just someone else’s job to care
‘Cause who am I to wanna try? But
[Pre-Chorus]
Change is a powerful thing, people are powerful beings
Tryin’ to find the power in me to be faithful
Change is a powerful thing, I feel it comin’ in me
Maybe by the time summer’s done
I’ll be able to be honest, capable
Of holdin’ you in my arms without letting you fall
When I don’t feel beautiful or stable
Maybe it’s enough to just be where we are, because
[Chorus]
Every time that we run, we don’t know what it’s from
Now we finally slow down, we feel close to it
There’s a change gonna come, I don’t know where or when
But whenever it does, we’ll be here for it
[Outro]
Yeah, whenever it does, we’ll be here for it
Whenever it does, we’ll be here for it
Meet Me In Montauk 
So, at your suggestion, we listened to the album Honeymoon on our drive to Orlando. We both had the same initial reaction, which was that, while we appreciated the quality of the songs, there was a melancholy tonal sameness that made the tracks rather indistinguishable and, candidly, a bit boring.
I find it interesting that you have knocked the sameness in the music of great artists like James Taylor, Tracy Chapman and the indigo Girls (who actually have far more diversity of sound and style than you give them credit for), while there seems to be no amount of sameness in melancholy artists like Aimee Mann, Morrisey, Ron Sexsmith and Lana Del Ray to trigger a similar criticism.
I guess it just boils down to the fact that “you like what you like.” Of the artists you named, Sexsmith is the only one I would agree suffers from the sameness problem, and he’s actually a much better fit, musically, with Taylor, Chapman and the Indigo Girls.