Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Lana Del Rey · S2 E6
Ride
A ten-minute short film, a spoken-word monologue, and the most honest she's ever been
October 2012. Lana Del Rey releases a short film for a song called "Ride," and it opens not with music but with her voice, speaking directly to the camera: "I was always an unusual girl."
"Ride" (Lana Del Rey, 2012). The ten-minute short film that opens with "I was always an unusual girl." Bikers, motel rooms, American flags, and a spoken-word monologue about loneliness and freedom delivered straight to camera. This isn't a music video. It's a confession.
The Monologue
The Ride short film is not a music video. It's a ten-minute confessional that uses the song as its emotional spine while Lana delivers a spoken-word monologue about loneliness, freedom, and the price of being different. She addresses the camera like she's talking to one person, and that person is you.
Sources
The Guardian
Pitchfork
Rolling Stone
“That monologue is the most honest thing I've ever done. More honest than any song.”
— Lana Del Rey, on the Ride short film
TAP TO REVEAL: How long is the spoken-word monologue in Ride?
Love, Lana Del Rey (2017)
The production opens with a cascading synth line that sounds like stars falling. Rick Nowels and Benny Blanco built the arrangement around negative space, letting Lana's voice carry entire sections with almost nothing underneath. Listen for how the chorus lifts without ever getting loud, creating the sensation of floating rather than flying. The song is about watching the next generation fall in love, and it sounds like remembering something that hasn't happened yet.
Sources
Pitchfork
NME
Ride: The Short Film
American, Lana Del Rey
From Paradise (2012). Released in the same era as Ride, this is Lana's love letter to an America that might not exist outside her imagination. "You make me crazy, you make me wild, just like a baby, spin me round like a child." Where the Ride monologue dissects the mythology, this song surrenders to it completely.
American, Lana Del Rey (2012)
The lyrics paint an America made of convertibles, diners, and sunsets that never end. It's the same country the Ride monologue describes, but from the inside, before the disillusionment sets in. Every line is a postcard from a place that exists only in Lana's head.
How long is the Ride short film in total?
Ride closes the Born to Die chapter, but Lana isn't done with this world yet. Next: the Paradise EP, a short film called Tropico, and the final act before she tears everything down and starts over.
0 XP earned this session