Unpacking the brilliance of Lana Del Rey’s “The Greatest”
Lana Del Rey. An ever-lasting, prominent, often controversial, and effervescent musical icon of the 21st century. For many, Lana is a main protagonist of the cultural zeitgeist of the 2010s. Much of her words, her poetry, her eclectic musical leanings, her style, and her Americana aesthetics have been reprised in countless corners of the dominant culture. Her smash cut of a debut, Born to Die (2012), was a cultural reset which pushed the boundaries of alternative and pop music. Replacing an album of Born to Die’s calibre during a single career cycle is no mean feat, but Del Rey is a master at achieving the inconceivable and making it look easy. Her 2019 masterpiece, Norman Fucking Rockwell!, is a nod to the convoluted intersections between American politics, our degrading environment, and the repercussions of ever-evolving technology. NFR is a story about Del Rey herself, her musings, her connections to California and, above all, her art’s place within this beautifully convoluted chaos.
Many do not see the power that Del Rey harbours. Without ever truly dominating music charts with catchy overplayed tunes, she has been able to preserve a space in the industry that is specifically carved out by her, for her. Her cultural significance is solidified with every album she releases and creative project she takes on. Ever since the beginning of her career, she’s kept a linear progression of artistic growth and has taken us along on that journey. One moment that truly asserted the ascendancy of her worldview was, like its namesake, “The Greatest” of it all.
Seconds into this surf rock tune, Del Rey speaks light into desperation, melancholy, and longing for something one never even had. She misses Long Beach, but most of all, she misses dancing with someone, replacing the feeling of ‘who’ with ‘where’. Even though I’ve never been to Long Beach or California, I am already there with her and can feel her yearning for her past life. Lana makes love and loss feel both singular and all-encompassing at once. She can make the world stop, change its axis, and mesmerise us in the process.
Through her majestic lyricism, Del Rey asks questions but never offers answers. Meaning finds itself within her lines in an effortless manner. She imitates art and with that, art imitates her. One theme that keeps running through “The Greatest” is destruction. Have the stakes ever been higher? The world is burning. Politicians have never made less sense. We are all overstimulated, yet tired all the time. Where is this all leading? Is joy the same joy it used to be or has that also changed along with everything else? For Lana, even highs don’t hit the same way they used to. It’s just not the same as it was. As a person on the precipice of young adulthood, childhood is a fading memory along with all its uncomplicated pleasures. The world of early 2000s kids, playful yet devoid of screens and distractions, has come to an end. And most haven’t even had the time to grieve. With Lana, we are finally given the chance to reminisce on what it is we are truly losing. In that, we find the strength and resilience to pick ourselves back up and continue building this world. But the longing never disappears.
Yet, in Del Rey’s “The Greatest,” the simple joys of life have proven not to be enough. Her straightforward existence on the beach with her Californian twin flame, rock and blues music, wasn’t enough for her. She gave up her old life for something bigger and maybe even ‘greater’. The thing that chased her out of her old life is now the thing she wants to run back to. It is also precisely the thing that is being destroyed. Like Del Rey, the world is watching destruction and upheaval with a mixture of desperation and acceptance. As she says, “If this is it, I had a ball.”
Like everything else in Del Rey’s quickly fading world, “The Greatest” disappears with a list of stunning elegies, substantiating a sense of hope that is a new and heavy bearing on Lana’s shoulders. Hope is a dangerous thing for her to carry, but she is willing to do it anyway. There is peace in her voice, wrapping itself like a tight hug around the listener’s body. She finds a humorous quality in how nonsensical world events have gotten, such as billionaires’ wanting to colonise Mars and Kanye West dying his hair blonde. Amidst striking lyrics that are both funny and brutal, one thing remains clear: Lana is okay with moving on. She is turning a new page in the story of her life and asking her listeners to do the same—to let go of the past and all the messes we created and move forward along a line of bigger and greater disasters.
