From Blue Jeans to Blue Banisters

Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die (2012) is a memorable pop album for any number of reasons, but lyrically, it is most fundamentally marked by the ease with which the universal penetrates the particular. It’s not just that she’s lusting after a hunk in a white t-shirt and blue jeans. It’s that her love for him extends to the end of time. It’s not just that she’s dating a loser who plays video games. It’s that everything she does, she does for him. Heaven, jarringly, is delimited by his stunted desires.