Ever since Norman Fucking Rockwell!, Lana Del Rey has been tunneling deeper into her own vernacular. The lyrics to her new single, “White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter,” read like a pidgin creole of her treasured American ephemera. The John Deere mower from “Blue Bannisters” makes a return; she trades Cocoa Puffs for Rice Krispies, hissing “snap, crackle, pop” like a wretched Keebler elf peering out of a tree hollow. “Take my hand off the stove,” Del Rey coos, “Know how absolutely bad I’m with an oven.” Chilling words from our resident Sylvia Plath, or a self-recrimination about her baking skills?
We wouldn’t have a Lana Del Rey love song any other way. This is the woman who has been accused of channeling demonic energy at her concerts, who placed a hex on our current president during his first term. Within her potent brew are traces of Buffy Saint-Marie’s early Buchla experiments, downtown eccentrics like Laura Nyro and Lotti Golden, and vintage Disney soundtracks. The source of this voodoo, or perhaps its object, is Del Rey’s husband, Jeremy Dufrene, who’s also credited as a co-writer: “We’re a match, he’s just in my bone marrow.” After a career spent writing paeans to deadbeats and douchebags, of course her take on true love sounds like a horror movie.
