Which Lana Del Rey Song Is Your Life Anthem? Here's Ours

BY NADIA GERASSIMENKO

At Luna Luna Magazine, Lana Del Rey is our patron saint, our muse, our guardian fallen angel. Her persona mystifies us, her aura entrances us, and her dark energy compels us. It's Lana’s heavy, downcast, vulnerable neo-ambient vibes we adore so much. And the songs, like those of childhood youth, feel like they were uncannily orchestrated just for us. So, we all decided to share our thoughts and feelings about which of LDR's songs we feel profoundly connected with—our own life anthems. 

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Alaina Leary on Summertime Sadness

I connect with it for so many reasons. The first time I heard it, it was actually my cousin singing the lyrics over and over again, and this was in the summer of 2014. I felt that it was the perfect way to capture how *she* was feeling at the time. My cousin and I are very close, but she lives in Texas and only visits a few times a year. Her parents both passed away, and she feels really distant from the family besides me. So hearing those lyrics from her lips was really striking. We were walking in the dark and she was just singing “I've got that summertime, summertime sadness” over and over again while my dad and her husband walked ahead of us a few paces. A few days later I heard the full song on the radio, and I loved it. I really relate it to my cousin, not necessarily me, but I began to relate to parts of the song myself.

“I'm feelin’ electric tonight / Cruising down the coast goin’ ‘bout 99 / Got my bad baby by my heavenly side / I know if I go, I'll die happy tonight.” In the fall after that summer, I had to read Play it as It Lays by Joan Didion for class. The protagonist reminded me of a combination of my cousin and I, but a lot more outwardly vapid. I loved reading her story, though—the protagonist was cynical, and sad, and had no outward control of her life. I think we all feel that way sometimes. The character would get in her car and just drive as fast as possible. She had to get an abortion and this was during a time when abortions weren't legal, and women didn't have many rights. I felt that song was so attached to her, and although I've never gone through an abortion, I am a rape survivor, and I can relate to that feeling and that lyric, about just wanting to drive away from your problems. It's all about control, to me, the song and the character, and they're one and the same in my mind.

Patricia Grisafi on Gods and Monsters

Every so often, I get the urge to self-destruct in the most extravagant ways. I’ll fantasize about quitting my job in a fiery rage, getting drunk in some dark corner of the East Village, sending hostile letters to friends and enemies, picking fights in the street, crashing a concert and screaming on the stage, and then going to Alaska for a week and working on an alpaca farm. In my fantasy, the alpaca farm will soothe whatever perverse imp got inside, and I’ll return home rested, with beautiful skin.

Lana Del Rey’s Gods and Monsters speaks to me, especially when I start to feel emotionally itchy. The song details a woman’s quest to find experience at any cost. For the woman, self-destruction is necessary in order to live a full, authentic life: “In the land of Gods and Monsters / I was an angel / Looking to get fucked hard.” While she might be referring to rough sex—it’s Lana, after all—she’s also referring to a journey in which she dares life to happen in all its dirty, beautiful, terrifying, and transcendent splendor. She’s the brave author of her own voyage from innocence to experience.

The line “Living like Jim Morrison / Headed towards a fucked up holiday” resonates with me not because I particularly like Jim Morrison, but I like the myth of glorious destruction that he represents. We all want to take fucked up holidays, even if it’s just too many glasses of Malbec and tall tales at the local pub or writing the word “bitch” on the kitchen floor in mustard and then sobbing in it for a few hours. In another reality, Del Rey surely owns a boutique travel agency; “Fucked Up Holidays by Lana” would make a killing. I know I’d book a trip.

Trista Edwards on This Is What Makes Us Girls

I’ve hit my thirtieth year. Yes, this is young, but I do reflect on that ethereal mood of caprice and impulse of my 20s—an era of my life that is, in fact, gone. The thing is, I often still feel 20—consumed by whimsy and wanderlust with skeptic eye on authority and a disdain for rules. Lana’s This Is What Makes Us Girls has always represented this feeling for me. This song is so particularly youthful. It is for those girls who drink too much, dance on tables, break into the hotel pool. It is for those girls who only have time to care about the here and now. The girls Lana sings about in this song have always been me and not me. The girl that I am and the girl I want to be. While I have done my share of “bad girl” antics, I always feel I can be as “bad” as the girls in this song. I look up to them. They are my heroes that constantly remind me as I let the surrounding world, career, and age wrap certain restrictions around me I will never lose my lust for breaking into a pool that’s not mine, to strip down to my bikini, drink cheap beer as I float around to the sounds of a nearby radio, and smile up into the sky thinking how even the slightest rebellion feels so good. 

Photo credit to The Stadium Love

I always imagine the opening lines as Lana calling me to action—“Remember how we used to party up all night / Sneaking out and looking for a taste of real life / Drinking in the small town firelight.” There is something about having a night of complete disregard and that conquest for “real life.” To me this song is about the chase. Winning doesn’t matter; it is about the seeking, the doing, the living, the transgressing.

This song also encapsulates beauty of demise. It also illustrates the decline of youth and the destructive powers of love, both romantic and of girlhood bonds. I feel this particular moment in our lives is a sick passion we both desire and repent. It is that moment of realization that you can’t have it all. Lana sings “This is what makes us girls / We don’t stick together ‘cause we put our love first / Don’t cry about him, don’t cry about him / It’s all gonna happen.”  It does all happen; we learn sacrifice and that sacrifice is always parts of ourselves. This song reminds me of all my former selves from my younger years and makes me not forget to be one of those selves from time to time.

Nadia Gerassimenko on Ride

The way I interpret Ride by Lana Del Rey is that she’s a lost soul trying to find herself and her ground whether it is through the people—particularly older, experienced men—she meets or through her impromptu travels without a set destination. Wishing, hoping that something or someone could fill the hungry void inside her, that feeling of home she’s missing. She’s different, paradoxical even. She belongs to everyone and yet to no one. She wants to know what home feels like, but she needs her freedom too. There’s a continuous dichotomy between her two very different selves. The one that wants to belong. And the other that wants to be free. Can the two be able to co-exist one day and end “the war in…[her] mind?”

I’ve always felt lost myself. Like I didn’t belong in this world, in this time, in this society. If for a moment I would experience peace and contentedness with my life and my immediate milieu, the sensation would be fleeting and I would eventually revert back to feeling insatiable and melancholic. Perhaps it didn’t help me to be made of two contradictory natures. One being the down-to-earth, restrained, tentative pragmatist fighting with the dreamy, creative, and unconventional maverick. I cannot help but relate to one particular segment of the lyrics the most in Ride: “I'm tired of feeling like I'm fucking crazy / I'm tired of driving 'til I see stars in my eyes / It's all I've got to keep myself sane, baby / So I just ride, I just ride.” The exasperation of trying to control the constant, conflicting chatter in my mind. The exhaustion of trying to find the balance between my yin and yang and discover my true self and accept and love me as I am. Be one with myself and everything around me. But I am not one to ever give up, so like Lana, I just ride.

Illustration credit to Adrian Kozlowski

In the end, the Lana in Ride found her persons—the misfits, the free people, the on-the-roaders, just like her. With them by her side, she found herself. She admits she’s crazy, but she is free. She accepted herself wholly. And if ever she feels at war with herself, she knows what to do. (“I just ride.”) I also found myself, my harmony and happiness, my oneness with the universe. I learned that it is something I must find within me and that it’s always a work in progress. One cannot feel happy and complete all the time. 

Leza Cantoral on Brooklyn Baby

A year and a half ago I hopped on a train to New York City. I lied to my parents and said I was going to check out colleges but really I was going for love. I knew he was the one. Well, I was pretty damn sure that he was. We were outside the train station staring at each other, finally in the flesh after months of phone conversations that extended deep into the night, and I was chain smoking for lack of a better coping method. He noticed my feet in their sandals and could not believe how tiny they were. He asked me if he could see and I slipped my foot out of its sandal and he knelt down and held my foot that was not much larger than his hand. He stared at it incredulously and made some cute remarks I do not remember now. An old black man passed by and saw the little tableau and simply exclaimed “Aw hell no!” As if we were engaging in some seriously kinky behavior. Fourth wall was broken and we both burst out laughing. That night we did the deed and the next day it was like we had always been together.

He’s the one that introduced me to Lana Del Rey. He could not believe I had not heard her. He said “You must have heard Summertime Sadness on the radio. Lana is totally your girl.” He played Ultraviolence for me and I fell in love HARD. I will forever associate that whole album with moving to New York and falling in love. That whole summer all I listened to was Lana Del Rey. There were certain songs and certain lines in particular that I really connected with.

The line that always made me choke up was: “They judge me like a picture book / By the colors, like they forgot to read.” From Brooklyn Baby. It was hard not to cry every time I heard it.

The Mirror Has Two Faces by Jessica Buhman

That line is the story of my life from day one. As a Mexican-American-bisexual-Jewish girl, I have never felt like I fit in and I have always been judged by my surface. When I was in Mexico I was too white, and when I moved here I was not white enough. I am always terrified in social situations so I drink too much and act extroverted to calm down and often end up coming off as a loud-mouthed exhibitionist. I love deep conversation so I make eye contact and that scares people. People are either put off or drawn to me. There is no in between. I have always been judged in some way or another and it drives me nuts. It always breaks my heart that people cannot see that my intentions are good and that I just want to connect. My surface is just my body, it is not my soul.

That summer was a great awakening for me. Being loved and accepted by him shattered a spell of sadness and alienation that had enveloped me in an angry fog for many years. I felt happy. I felt like myself. I could be myself with him and I saw that he accepted me as I was. I had reached a point, right before embarking on my trip to NYC, where I had finally finished a long overdue BA thesis and kicked the most abusive boyfriend I had ever dated, in a long cycle of abusive boyfriends, to the curb. It was a massive turning point for me.

Lana was like my spiritual midwife. I was reborn with Ultraviolence as my soundtrack. I felt like I was me and I had my voice back and I blissfully would sing along to Brooklyn Baby as we drove in his car. I felt new and happy and free and I would always grin when I sang, “Yeah my boyfriend’s pretty cool, but he’s not as cool as me, ‘cause I’m a Brooklyn baby.”

Tiffany Chaney on Once Upon a Dream

Several songs of Lana Del Rey's resonate with me deeply. I feel as a wandering soul holding a moment that is broken and reflective intimately to my chest, moving forward and yet backward at the same time. The songs are layered. I have so much of her work to explore. I found myself recently listening to newer releases (especially while writing) and am getting to know those better. I associate aspects of Summertime Sadness (I love “sizzling like a snare”) and Burning Desire with past loves and those poetic time periods of my life. The one song that I will play over and over again is Once Upon a Dream, Lana's version that was done for Maleficent.

“I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream / I know you, that look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam / And I know it's true that visions are seldom all they seem.” This gets me. It's her intonations of “I know you...” It's in the *atmosphere* of such a supposedly simple song. It's cyclical like time and memory...All so familiar, this walk. I feel the alto within my chest, reverberating. Something old here at work. Like past lives. Like the too familiar patterns we enact with others, how entangled we are. How I feel when I sing the song, empowering, knowing, bittersweet, and timeless…

It is hard to choose, but Lana's music is about flowing through it all—adding a new layer of understanding every time you revisit a moment...Why you are haunted and why you continue to let yourself be.

I know you—sometimes I feel like I've known others so much more than myself…Being the listener. Have I truly listened to myself, though? Yes, and no. Have I walked with myself? How am I looking at this? Dream or no, lifetimes ago or not...Visions are seldom all they seem. It's in the humming of the song. That ancient buzzing within the chest...Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar says it right: “I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am.” Yes, this is the same thing.

(I feel so much at once, especially as an empath or as a Highly Sensitive Person or a poet or whatever you want to call it…This is about the path of feeling for me.)

Advice: My Love Has Left Me, What Do I Do?

Today is the day that our very own advice columnist, Word Witch Rebecca Cook, offers up advice for your lovely little heart. This is our first installment. If you need advice, you can email her  (lunawordwitch @ gmail.com)

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Dear Word Witch,

My love has left me. What must I do?
Please help,
Lonesome

Dear Lonesome,

You must buy many lime-green and purple umbrellas and go out into the rain. And walk. And slap through puddles. You must wear shiny red rubbery slick boots and you must listen to whichever wind calls to you. You must stand facing to the east in the evening and the west in the morning and you must cry out for your lover. But you must whisper. And you must wear white gloves with tiny buttons all the way to your elbows. And nothing but lemon water must pass your lips for forty days. And you must lie down and press your mouth against the throat of the sky and kiss her, kiss her, and your love will return to you.

The Books That Lied

BY NICOLA PRENTIS

As an adult, I read when I can steal a moment back from my day. A book can take months to finish. The bookmark has always fallen out and sometimes I read several pages before realising I'm covering old ground. Books are entertainment, inspiration, education, the best of them might make me cry but they rarely get my full attention now that attention is divided between so many more duties. But the books I read as a teenager, when I could spend an entire weekend curled around one on the sofa, shaped me. From treasured volumes to throw away instalments of teen serials, Judy Blume, LM Montgomery, Francine Pascal and the authors of countless historical romances taught me about myself, boys and sex. 

They lied.

From age 13, I was at the library every Saturday to take out the 6 books my card allowed. I often went with friends so we could maximise the loan number by swapping books between us, queueing up together to borrow the book the second the other girl returned it. At school we had to keep a reading log, a chore for most of the class but a badge of honour to those of us getting through two or three books a week. By age 15, my teen and historical romance reading list had expanded to include horror, Stephen King and Graham Masterton, and bonkbusters, Jackie Collins and Jilly Cooper, but none of those led to the damage the more age-appropriate books did. 

The walk to the library, like any walk into town, brought the honking of cars if I wore a skirt. They slowed down to allow craning necks, maybe a shouted comment, even though, at 13, I was probably with my mother. She still looked good, but we both knew that it was my blondish hair and shapely calves that drew their attention. I revelled in it. I was Jessica Wakefield of Sweet Valley High – less sun-kissed, less kissed, but I too wore denim miniskirts 'teamed with' high-heeled 'pumps.' When bad boy Bruce Patman tried to untie the top of the sexy bikini Jessica had picked out, she playfully swatted his hand away. Jessica was a sassy 16-year-old and boys did her bidding. When two boys pinned me to the floor at a friend's house-party and pulled up the sexy, short, tight dress I was wearing, I only escaped more than a groping because someone intervened. 

At 17, an older boy, Sean*, was finally mine after I'd longed for him throughout a year of glimpses around town. He looked just like teen heartthrob Jason Priestly of Beverly Hills 90210. I was the same age as Katherine in Forever when she started going out with Michael. Katherine decided to seal their love by having sex for the first time. Michael was patient and understanding and so was Ralph, his penis.  The Jason Priestly lookalike's penis was less patient. Every time we were alone together, I felt I had to go that bit further even though I'd stopped being comfortable (slightly post-Jessica's limit) when he had my top off. I eventually gave in because it seemed easier than saying no – again. Where Michael gave Katherine an orgasm just by moving slowly inside her, Sean's Ralph hurt too much to carry on. In fact, I realised years later when I managed to banish the memory enough to lose my virginity, it hadn't even been fully in. Afterwards, Katherine asked Michael to show her what to do for him. I just wanted to be somewhere else. Sean wanted to try again. I asked, "Do we have to?"

At university, in the first two weeks, I met Andy. He brought me a mug of tomato soup in bed when I had flu and then kissed me for the first time, even though I'd told him I was so bunged up I could hardly breathe. I kissed him back long enough, I hoped, to be polite and say thanks for the soup. While Anne of Green Gables rebuffed Gilbert Blythe over and over, he remained her admirer through school, college and beyond. Andy would leave my room so sexually frustrated, he said, that he was bouncing off the walls. We were together six weeks until he dumped me. I told myself, if only I had been able to have sex with him, we would have lasted. 

I went through university with a gaggle of Wonderbra-enhanced, short-skirted and flirtatious friends, the modern-dressed versions of the heroines in historical novels. Corseted, breasts pushed up, vying for the attention of a Lord or King, they held out long enough to gain titles and wealth and only then succumbed to his lusts.  We got in free to the Student Union 80s night on Tuesdays, Club Tropicana. The bouncers got a quick flash of hoisted up flesh and we saved £2.50. I think we even skipped the line. I once got so drunk that when a male friend took me home at the end of the night, I came to my senses on top of him and didn't know who he was. We never mentioned it afterwards.

My teenage literary heroines lived in worlds penned by women who were living a romanticised story version of what I now know their real lives could never have been. They could never have met many real Michaels or Gilberts, would have been lucky to meet no-one more sinister than the easily caged Bruce, and I doubt any Kings had showered gifts in return for their virtue. As a teenager, I knew the stories weren't real but I still believed in the fiction. I thought you could tease boys and keep them under your playful control. I thought the first time would be special and on my terms. I thought saying "no" would inspire respect at least, if not my own manor house. The girlish books I inhabited taught me nothing about how to deal with male libido as it really is: unromantic, unyielding, always on the lookout for a weak moment. 

I wish I could tell the teenagers of the last few years that they're never going to meet a chastely respectful Edward Cullen or a lovesick Peeta Mallark, grateful for whatever bone they throw him. I wish I could warn them: the fiction isn't only the vampires and the Games. As a writer, perhaps I should be writing books for girls that teach them how different, how dark, men can be when they're hot for it. Or, maybe it would take a man to write an honest book for teenage girls. But I still want to make believe. I lie for myself with my charming heroes and my in-charge heroines, despite knowing I risk the next generation of girls falling for the lies like I did.

*name changed

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Nicola Prentis has written for Salon, xojane, AlterNet and Refinery 29 and has had short fiction published. 

13 Aesthetically Beautiful Literary Journals To Submit To & Read

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

Great writing will always be the most important element for any journal, but being pretty also doesn't hurt. The below publishers have taken time to build an aesthetic world for their contributors and readers, making the read a much more meaningful and whole experience. Whether minimalist or colorfully elaborate, these sites are gorgeously bespoke, thoughtful and filled with talent.

ANTHROPOID
From the publisher: "We love the fundamental business of being humanesque. Issues of identity, culture, belonging or lack, vulnerability, collectivism, the body, ritual–anthropological subjects from a generalist’s view, or, cultural moments from a messy, personal perspective. Tightly snuggled with visuals for each feature, we publish in collected issues and individual articles: ethnography & essays, experiential narratives, fiction & poetry, visuals, conceptual work, and genre-bending, from voices in the literary field, the humanities, and the sciences."

We recommend reading: Aura Girl, by Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick

PAPERBAG
From the publisher: "Paperbag is interested in presenting larger bodies of visual art, poetry, sound, experiment, and collaboration from established and emerging writers and artists throughout the world."

We recommend reading: Everything Will Be Taken Away, by Morgan Parker

ROGUE AGENT
From the publisher: "If our bodies are oppressed by an outside force, we are "written over." Rogue Agent wants to retaliate. Rogue Agent wants reconciliation. Rogue Agent wants to share your stories about the poem that is the body. "

We recommend reading: Blow Her Up, by Juliet Cook
 

TARPAULIN SKY
From the publisher: "As with Tarpaulin Sky’s books, the magazine focuses on cross-genre / trans-genre / hybrid forms as well as innovative poetry and prose. The journal is not allied with any one style or school or network of writers; rather, we try to avoid some of the defects associated with dipping too often into the same literary gene pool, and the diversity of our contributors is evidence of our eclectic interests."

We recommend reading: A Mouth, A Maw, by Lital Khaikan

PITH
From the publisher: "Pith is an online journal that collects experimental bits. We define “experimental” as something akin to a deep breath of uncertainty; an inclination to remain lost when certainty is calling. Visual/written hybrids, multi-genre writing, erasures….that sort of thing."

We recommend reading: Deus Ex Machina/Rachel, by Jennifer Pilch

BAT CITY REVIEW
From the publisher: "Founded in 2004, Bat City Review is an annual literary journal run by graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin, supported by the English Department and the James A. Michener Center for Writers. We read thousands of submissions each year and publish only the best in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and visual art. "

We recommend reading: Afterwards, the boys stand in the kitchen, by Francine J. Harris

AMPERSAND REVIEW
From the publisher: "We are looking for creative work, but only good creative work. Give us God, give us man, give us people & make us laugh. If you can make us cry, do so, if you want to lament loss of pets & family, do not. We enjoy pleasant nonsense & the deeply profound, the sharp little crack of things we don’t speak of in polite company. We want to feel, & we want to want, & we don’t want Cheap Trick jokes inserted here, unless they are awesome. We are strict & unbiased; aesthetic & craft are Queen; we want to read a good piece as much as our readers, so write one before submitting."

We recommend reading: Illness as Matador, by Michael Klein

THE BOILER JOURNAL
From the publisher: "The Boiler began in 2011 by a group of writers at Sarah Lawrence College. We publish poetry, fiction, and nonfiction on a quarterly basis. We like work that turns up the heat, whistles, and stands up to pressure."

We recommend reading: Poems by Sarah Ann Winn

PRICK OF THE SPINDLE
From the publisher: "We publish poetry, fiction (from flash to novella-length), drama, creative and academic nonfiction, articles, interviews, literary reviews, film, and visual art. Although we do not publish genre fiction, we are open to different forms. These may be more traditional, but infused with freshness and innovation; or experimental but not chaotic: if it is chaos in complete freedom of form you are aiming at, envelop it within some structure, even if only the structure of meaning. To submit, visit the submission guidelines page for the link to the submission manager."

We recommend reading: In Case of Infection, by Vicki Entreken

LANA TURNER
From the publisher: "The Lana Turner Blog is edited by David Lau. Currently seeking essays or reviews of recent books of poetry, albums, literary criticism, films, film theory, and accounts of contemporary political economy. Accepting proposals for various kinds of journalistic reports. Electronic submission should be sent in one file to dmlau@ucsc.edu. Submissions welcome all year."

We recommend reading: 3 poems from Trilce, by Cesar Vallejo

* Bonus points for publishing Vallejo

BERFROIS
From the publisher: "Berfrois is a literary-intellectual online magazine. It is edited by Russell Bennetts. The site is updated daily. Berfrois is published by Pendant Publishing in London, UK." 

We recommend reading: Doohickey: Vertigo's Elusive Homage, by B. Alexandra Szerlip

SPORKLET
From the publisher: "Sporklet (est’d. 2015) is published quasi-monthly, features poetry & fiction, and occasionally includes solicited art, music, film…"

We recommend reading: Seven poems, by Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein

LA VAGUE
From the publisher: "La Vague publishes eight female poets and eight works by a female artist under a set theme twice a year in January and July. La Vague intends to show the close relationship between poetry and visual art and how certain themes resonate among the contributors."

We recommend reading: Start minting, Uninc, by Candance Wuelhe

Selections From Kim Vodicka's "Psychic Privates"

Editor's note: these poems originally appeared in the old/previous Luna Luna.

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Kim Vodicka is the author of Aesthesia Balderdash (Trembling Pillow Press, 2012). A freelance writer and teacher by day, she moonlights as the spokesbitch of a degeneration. Her poems, art, and other projects have appeared in or are forthcoming from Shampoo, Spork, RealPoetik, Cloudheavy Zine, THEthe Poetry, Women Poets Wearing Sweatpants, Epiphany, Industrial Lunch, Moss Trill, Smoking Glue Gun, Paper Darts, The Volta, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, Makeout Creek, The Electric Gurlesque, Best American Experimental Writing (BAX) 2015, and many others. Her manuscript, Psychic Privates, was a 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize Finalist. Cruise more of her work at ih8kimvodicka.tumblr.com.