This isn’t going to be a Lana del Rey fan blog, but people are dead wrong about the released snippet (acting like I haven’t heard the SoundCloud leaks) from Lana’s new song “Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have, but I have it.” Without further ado, as Royce da 5’9 said, FIRST VERSE:

I was reading Slim Aarons and I got to thinking that I thought

Maybe I’d get less stressed if I was tested less like

All of these debutantes

Smiling for miles in pink dresses and high heels on white yachts

But I’m not, baby, I’m not

No, I’m not, that I’m not

The top rated Genius comment, and most of everything else written about this verse is saying that she is comparing her own life to the oh-so-stressful life of a debutante. She thinks, maybe she would be less stressed were she not tested so much like these debutantes (“tested less like all of these debutantes”).

I’m 99% sure she means “I”d get less stressed if I were tested less, like all of these debutantes.” She says herself that the only thing that numbs the pain of depression (or something like it–the “black narcissist”) is shaking her ass. How different from that is the life of a debutante, being made into eye candy in a pink dress and high heels?

In case the obvious theme of this song isn’t enough, Lana del Rey’s music is (spoiler alert) very dark. With her musical corpus filled with domestic violence, alcoholism, drugs, and broken families, there is no way she thinks she’s been tested less than the average American debutante.

If literary analysis of Lana’s work doesn’t do it for you, you can also tell from the last lines of the verse. She’s saying “baby, I’m not” as in she’s not a debutante. I think it’s pretty obvious that this refers to the girls smiling for miles in heels. Hence, she is not less stressed less. The other side has to argue that she means “Baby, I’m not tested less like a debutante.” If anything, it’d make more sense to say “but I am [tested like a debutante].” So if you don’t like my Sidgwickian dissections of Lana’s literary work, you can tell this from good old English grammar.

Again, not a Lana del Rey fan blog. The next post will be a snobby London restaurant review.