But it’s hard to be cynical while it’s playing – just a piano and voice, it’s the model of elegant simplicity. Hope is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have – But I Have It (2019)Ī cynic might suggest that, from its title to its lyrics (“24/7 Sylvia Plath”, “spilling my guts with the Bowery bums is the only love I’ve ever known”), this is a song that teeters on the verge of self-parody. Like Dory Previn’s Mary C Brown and the Hollywood Sign, Lust for Life is haunted by the 1932 suicide of failed actor Peg Entwhistle: like the relentless pulsing synthesiser in the background, the allusions to it add a dark undertow to what initially sound like bullish assertions of strength from Del Rey and Abel Tesfaye: “We’re masters of our own fate.” 13. It’s jazzy in the sense that a torch song is jazzy, but – beyond the parched, reverb-heavy guitars that recall Mazzy Star – the most obvious influence is John Barry’s Theme From Midnight Cowboy, echoed in the lovely descending vocal melody.

Lana Del Rey’s favourite song from Honeymoon, apparently because it was “jazzy”.

Wild at heart lyrics lana