Six days ago, Lana Del Rey released her newest song.

I’ve been tearing around in my fucking night gown 2/47 Sylvia Plath

It’s a sheer, luminous ballad with her perfect voice echoing in a wash over barely-there piano chords.

Writing in blood on the walls ’cause the ink in my pen don’t work in my notepad

The sparse, elegiac lyrics pierce the hard shell I require in place in order to function at the moment.

Don’t ask if I’m happy, you know that I’m not but at best I can say I’m not sad

But they can’t crack it.

‘Cause hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have
Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman with my past

A friend remixed it into a deeper orchestral version with a percussion beat. A feeling of foreboding in the verses is emphasised by the addition of cuts from Marilyn Monroe’s last interview. A repeating piano melody makes melancholy look good.

‘Cause I’ve got monsters still under my bed that I could never fight off

This is the most extreme depression I’ve battled in some years. I am empty.

Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have
But I have it

And yet, there is hope. Because history tells me it will pass.

 

If you want to listen to the original, here it is.