Lana Del Rey’s Spoken Word Album Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass Is Out; Hear A Sample Track

Lana Del Rey’s Spoken Word Album Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass Is Out; Hear A Sample Track

For more than a year, Lana Del Rey has been talking about publishing books of poetry and releasing spoken-word albums. The first of those efforts is called Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass, and it’ll eventually be available as both a book and an album. Today, as promised, the album is out.

Right now, Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass is available as an audio book, not as an album — which really just means you can stream it on Audible, but not on Spotify. The audiobook lasts for 33 minutes, and it’s got Del Rey reading her poetry over the soft, thrumming ambient music of her regular collaborator Jack Antonoff.

Del Rey posted the poem “Patent Leather Do-Over” on Instagram back in May. That one isn’t part of Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass. (Apparently it’s from behind the iron gates — insights from an institution, a second collection that Del Rey plans to publish in March.) Today, Del Rey has posted a recording of the Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass poem “LA Who Am I To Love You?” on YouTube. It’s not terribly dissimilar from “Patent Leather Do-Over.”

“LA Who Am I To Love You?” is written from the perspective of a woman who has left Los Angeles to be with a billionaire in San Francisco, and it’s a kind of conflicted, unrequited love poem to Los Angeles. Some characteristic lines: “They say I came from money, and I didn’t, and I didn’t even have love, and it’s unfair/ LA, I sold my life rights for a big check and I’m upset.” Listen below.

The Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass audiobook is out now on Instagram, and you can look into buying it here. Supposedly, there’s an actual Lana Del Rey album — songs, not poems — coming 9/5.

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