“Hello? Helllo? C-can you hear me?” Lana Del Rey’s almost four minute song, “Without you” is a symbolic melody about her love for a boy who is bad for her. Her use of metaphors and imagery throughout the song makes it meaningful and interesting.
The first stanza is “Everything I want I have: money, notoriety and rivieras. I even think I found god In the flash bulbs of the pretty cameras, pretty cameras, pretty cameras. Am I glamorous? Tell me am I glamorous?” What she’s saying is that she’s satisfied with her life, and the glamour of being a celebrity.
The following chours is: “Hello? Hello? C-can you hear me? I can be your china doll If you want to see me fall. Boy, you’re so dope, your love is deadly. Tell me life is beautiful, they all think I have it all. I’m nothing without you. All my dreams and all the lights mean Nothing without you.” By comparing herself to a china doll, the metaphor she’s trying to get across is that she would change for the person she loves, even if they’re bad for her. She also is saying that she’s fragile and will break easily. She also says that everyone thinks she “has it all”, but she disagrees, because if she can’t have him, she has nothing.
The next stanza is “Summertime is nice and hot, And my life is sweet like vanilla is. Gold and silver line my heart but burned into my brain are these stolen images, stolen images, baby, stolen images. Can you picture it, babe, the life we could’ve lived?” In this stanza she uses a metaphor, by comparing her life to sweet vanilla, meaning that everything was smooth sailing and easy. Then she continues to say that the pictures in her brain of the future were “stolen” because when they broke up, those images of the future were no longer there and he “took” them.
After the chorus is sung again, the third stanza is “We were two kids, just tryin’ to get out, Live on the dark side of the American dream. We would dance all night, play our music loud, when we grew up, nothing was what it seemed.” She is trying to say that they were young and innocent, trying to live freely and have fun, but when they grew out of that phase everything was different. The chorus hooks again and then the song is over.
Lana’s use of metaphors and imagery throughout the song makes it meaningful and interesting. The song stands for her love for something that she knows is bad for her. It’s important because that happens often and its a song that young girls can relate to. Her aesthetic is usually singing about love, but I think this song stands out because it’s her saying that his “love is deadly,” and shes acknowledging that his love isn’t what it seemed.