Lana Del Rey professes her devotion to Los Angeles in “L.A. Who Am I to Love You,” a spoken word piece from her new audiobook of poems Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, out Tuesday.
“I left my city for San Francisco,” Del Rey declares in the opening lines, across Jack Antonoff’s subtle piano. “Took a free ride off a billionaire’s jet/L.A., I’m from nowhere/Who am I to love you?”
“L.A., I’m upset, I have complaints, listen to me,” she continues. “They say I came from money and I didn’t/And I didn’t even have love and it’s unfair/L.A., I sold my life rights for a big check and I’m upset.” Later, she admits: “L.A., I picked San Francisco because the man who doesn’t love me lives there/L.A., I’m pathetic but so are you/Can I come home now?”
CD and vinyl of the audiobook version of Violet will ship on October 2nd, while hardcover and e-book editions will be released on September 29th. Del Rey is also preparing to release a second poetry book, Behind the Iron Gates – Insights From an Institution, which includes the piece “Patent Leather Do-Over.”
Del Rey will donate half of the proceeds from Violet to the Navajo Water Project. “The Navajo Water Project has a fundraising target of $1,035,000 for 2020 to bring running water and solar power to 230 families,” Del Rey said earlier this month. “And we plan on fulfilling that target in the next four weeks to bring it up to their million-dollar mark, and we’ll be traveling throughout New Mexico, Arizona and Utah to say hello and make sure it gets done.”
On September 5th, Del Rey will release Chemtrails over the Country Club, her follow-up to 2019’s Norman Fucking Rockwell!
Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio from VIOLET BENT BACKWARDS OVER THE GRASS by Lana Del Rey, read by the author. Copyright © 2020 by Lana Del Rey. Used with permission from Simon & Schuster, Inc.
