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Lana Del Rey · S6 E7
Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass
Lana publishes poetry, and the literary world doesn't know what to do with her
September 2020. Lana Del Rey publishes a poetry collection through Simon & Schuster, reads it aloud over Jack Antonoff instrumentals, and donates half the profits to Native American charities. The literary world has no idea what to do with a pop star who writes poems.
"Candy Necklace" ft. Jon Batiste (Lana Del Rey, 2023). Another example of Lana refusing to stay in one lane: a collaboration with a jazz polymath on a track that floats between genres. The same creative restlessness that led to a poetry book leads to moments like this.
The Pop Star Who Writes Poems
Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass started during a period of writer's block while Lana was working on NFR!. She sat down to write without music, and poems came out instead of songs. The result is a collection that reads like her lyrics stripped of melody: raw, image-heavy, and completely unconcerned with what anyone thinks a pop star should publish.
Sources
Simon & Schuster
The Guardian
“I was having a little bit of writer's block with the music last fall and so I just sat down to write some words without music and I realised there was just a couple of things I wanted to say through some poems.”
— Lana Del Rey on writing Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, 2020
Candy Necklace ft. Jon Batiste, Lana Del Rey (2023)
Jon Batiste's piano floats under Lana's vocal like smoke, and the production is so gentle it barely exists. The arrangement is closer to a jazz standard than a pop song, with space between the notes that most producers would fill. Listen for how Batiste's improvisational instincts push Lana into a vocal performance that's looser and more conversational than usual. The collaboration works because both artists share the same impulse: ignore categories, follow the feeling.
Sources
Pitchfork
Rolling Stone
TAP TO REVEAL: How did Lana describe her writing process for the poems?
The Audiobook
Lana doesn't just publish the poems. She records them over Jack Antonoff instrumentals, creating a spoken-word album that sits somewhere between audiobook and ambient music. Hearing her read her own words without a melody to hide behind is the logical endpoint of the NFR! era: every layer of production stripped away until only the voice and the language remain.
Sources
Pitchfork
NME
Violet Bent Backwards: The Facts
The Next Best American Record, Lana Del Rey
From Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019). Originally a demo called "Architecture" that Lana reworked into something new for NFR!. The transformation from one song into another mirrors the relationship between poetry and songwriting: the same words, the same feelings, the same writer, but a completely different form. This is the NFR! track that sounds most like a poem set to music.
The Next Best American Record, Lana Del Rey (2019)
"We were so obsessed with writing the next best American record" she sings, and the self-awareness of the title is the whole point. After NFR!, she wrote an actual book. The ambition is the same. The medium just changed.
Which major publishing house released Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass?
Norman Fucking Rockwell! gave Lana critical respect, a Grammy nomination, a poetry book, and the freedom to do anything she wants. Next season: the pandemic hits, Lana retreats, and an album called Chemtrails Over the Country Club arrives in a world that looks nothing like the one she left.
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To be continued
Season 7: Chemtrails & Blue Banisters
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