Lana Del Rey Goes All-Out California Girl in Her New Video
Lana Del Rey grew up in upstate New York, but you’d never guess that by the looks of her new video. The singer goes all-out California girl in the new visual for “Fuck It I Love You” and “The Greatest.” In the first half of the clip, she’s a surfer girl in a wetsuit (although she skateboards a little, too), and there’s some nostalgic, campy shots of her in a red one-piece balancing on a surfboard that could be straight out of a 1960s beach party film. The lyrics are a fair bit darker than the sunset coastline setting suggests—the song ends with her singing Drugs is in my vein, running out of time/California dreamin’ I got my money on my mind.
In the next half of the nautical-themed video, Del Rey indulges in more old-school California fantasies, singing, I miss Long Beach and I miss you, babe… I miss the bar where the Beach Boys would go/Dennis’s last stop before Kokomo. She walks around the Port of Long Beach in cutoff jean shorts and a pair of white sneakers, and those scenes are interspersed with glimpses of her performing for a small crowd of aging hippies in a dive bar (lucky them!).
It all ends on a somber note (Hawaii just missed a fireball/L.A. is in flames, it’s getting hot/Kanye West is blond and gone/‘Life on Mars’ ain’t just a song), as Del Rey vapes pensively in a jacket emblazoned with a massive cresting wave. She might look like the quintessential Cali girl, but as she sets sail into the darkness, it’s clear that her idea of the golden state is one tinged with nostalgia—the actual future is far more foreboding.
Originally Appeared on Vogue
