Lana Del Rey Talks FKA Twigs, Marianne Williamson, & New Album Chemtrails Over The Country Club In Latest Self-Defense
After getting widely roasted for an Instagram post some interpreted as racist, Lana Del Rey posted two follow-up messages explaining and defending the content of the original post. Now she’s back with yet another dispatch on the subject, a six-minute video in which she reveals that the title of her next album is Chemtrails Over The Country Club. Along the way Del Rey also praises former fringe Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, brings FKA twigs’ pole dancing into the discussion, and insists that she is not racist, just a good-intentioned person who gets “fucked up the ass constantly by the culture.”
To recap: Del Rey’s original post, which emerged last Wednesday night with no clear immediate provocation, was about how she was fed up with people who say her music glamorizes abuse: “Now that Doja Cat, Ariana, Camila, Cardi B, Kehlani and Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé have had number ones with songs about being sexy, wearing no clothes, fucking, cheating, etc — can I please go back to singing about being embodied, feeling beautiful by being in love even if the relationship is not perfect, or dancing for money — or whatever i want — without being crucified or saying that I’m glamorising abuse???????” Because this list mostly comprised black women — and because Del Rey later wrote, “there has to be a place in feminism for women who look and act like me” — some readers focused on the statement’s implied racial content. In her subsequent posts, Del Rey has dismissed this reading as a willful misinterpretation, a subject she returns to in the new video message.
“Hey, so I don’t wanna beat a dead horse and I don’t wanna go on and on about this post,” Del Rey begins before beating a dead horse and going on and on about the post. “I just think it’s sad that the women I mentioned, whether they sing about getting money or whatever, the same stuff that I’ve been singing about, chronicling for 13 years,” she says. “That’s why I’m in that echelon. Yes, they are my friends and peers and contemporaries. The difference is when I get on the pole people call me a whore, but when twigs gets on the pole it’s art.” Del Rey mentions Williamson’s name in regard to the concept of reparations. She concludes, “So God bless and yeah, fuck off if you don’t like the post.” There’s a lot to take in, but here’s the full text:
Hey, so I don’t wanna beat a dead horse and I don’t wanna go on and on about this post, but I just wanna remind you that in that post, the one and only personal declaration I’ve ever made — thanks for being so warm and welcoming — was about the need for fragility in the feminist movement. It’s gonna be important. And when I mentioned women who look like me, I didn’t mean white like me, I meant the kind of women who other people might not believe because they think, “Oh, look at her, she fuckin’ deserves it,” or whatever. There’s a lot of people like that, you know? And I just think it’s sad that the women I mentioned, whether they sing about getting money or whatever, the same stuff that I’ve been singing about, chronicling for 13 years. That’s why I’m in that echelon. Yes, they are my friends and peers and contemporaries. The difference is when I get on the pole people call me a whore, but when twigs gets on the pole it’s art. So, I’m reminded constantly by my friends that lyrically there are layers, complicated psychological factors that play into some of my songwriting.
But I just want to say, the culture’s super sick right now. And the fact that they want to turn my quotes, my advocacy for fragility into a race war? It’s really bad. It’s actually really bad. Especially when in that same declaration I was talking again about the idea of how important it is to make reparations for me to the Navajo community because they touched me so much in my youth, and that I believe in personal reparations because it’s the right thing to do. And I think what’s really sad is as a personal advocate, as a girl’s girl, as somebody who wants the best for every culture — you know, what Marianne Williamson was talking about — reparations to the black community that never got done during the emancipation period. That was why I liked her because I always felt that way.
So I just want to say to all of the other women out there who are like me, good girls, good-intentioned, who get fucked up the ass constantly by the culture just because you say what you really mean, I’m with you and I feel for you and I know that you feel for me. And I’m super strong. You can call me whatever. I’m sorry that I didn’t add one caucasian, 100% caucasian person into the mix of the women that I admire. But you know, it really says more about you than it does about me. And I think that what’s interesting, it’s the very first time that I decided to tell you anything about my life or the fact that I’m writing books that chronicle that fragility, that 200,000 hateful, spiteful comments come in, and my phone number leaked, and — comments like “You fucking white bitch.” It’s the opposite of the spirit of the advocate. It’s what pauses fragility. But it’s not gonna stop me, period.
So I just want to say, nobody gets to tell your story except for you. And if that means it’s kinda messy like this along the way, ‘cause unfortunately when you have a good heart it doesn’t always shine through. And you trudge on anyway. You make those personal reparations to heal your own family karmic lineage and the sickness of this country — domestic abuse, mental health problems is the second epidemic that’s arising out of this pandemic. It’s a real thing. That’s what I was talking about. So, as ever I’m grateful that my muse is still here and that I have, over the last three years, been blessed to have the insight and ability to channel two books’ worth of beautiful poems. And I think my new record Chemtrails Over The Country Club is special as well.
And I’m sorry that a couple of the girls I talked to who are mentioned in that post have a super different opinion of my insight, especially because we’ve been so close for so long, but it really, again, makes you reach into the depth of your own heart and say, “Am I good-intentioned?” And of course for me the answer is always yes. I barely ever share a thing, and this is why. And the reason why I’m making this post — and I know it seems a bit much, right? — but there are women out there like me who have so much to give and don’t quite get to the place spiritually or karmically where they’re supposed to be because there are other women who hate them and try and take them down. Whether in my case it’s certain alternative singers or mal-intented journalists or men who hate women. But I’m not the enemy, and I’m definitely not racist, so don’t get it twisted. Nobody gets to tell your story except for you. And that’s what I’m gonna do in the next couple books. So God bless and yeah, fuck off if you don’t like the post.
Additionally, after sharing “Patent Leather Do-Over” from her upcoming spoken-word album behind the iron gates – insights from an institution this past weekend, Del Rey has shared the track again with different visual accompaniment. You can watch her video message and the new music video of sorts below.
