“I’d been sick on tour for about two years with this medical anomaly that doctors couldn’t figure out,” she says, to my surprise. Lana Del Rey’s filmography is a master class on how to build an icon, and yet, no footage feels like proof of her iconicity as much as the shaky clip of a teary 2013 performance, shot on a phone by a fan in Dublin. Then the big budgets arrived: she sat on a throne backed by two tigers in the video for “Born to Die,” embodied both Jackie O and Marilyn in a span of minutes for “National Anthem” and, for "Tropico" lounged with Elvis and John Wayne in CGI heaven. Next came “Video Games,” which applied that same cut-up look to a slightly fuller sound, and thrust Grant, now singing as Lana Del Rey, from bedroom clips to blockbusters. Back then, sometimes she’d make four videos for the same song, but most times, nobody much saw them. First came the eerily star-foreshadowing montages of 2008, in which she stitched together found footage and vamped in front of an American flag under her given name, Lizzy Grant. Lana Del Rey, the singer whose entire self so often seems a carefully constructed display, didn’t conceive of this scene, like she has the many music videos that helped propel her to fame.
But no one else stops singing: It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you… She tries to sing too, of course, then pauses to cry and smile at the same time, seemingly overwhelmed by the audience’s affection. Finally, she turns to address the audience, smiles and says, “I think you’re going to have to sing it for me.” The piano starts, and everyone complies, very loudly and very clearly. Gently, she wipes a tear with the middle finger of her left hand, then wipes her nose, which from this angle appears as the bottom-half of a perfectly slender S curve that begins on her forehead, shimmies down her face and ramps off into the void. For one full minute: riotous, embracing applause. In the background, a massive screen flickers deep purple and blue beside her on stage sits a potted palm. The camera zooms in on Lana Del Rey as she turns away from the crowd, hiding all but the slightest silhouette of her face.
This is the last of four covers from our annual Summer Music issue. From the magazine: ISSUE 92, June/July 2014.
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