Lana Del Rey admits she was ‘really stressed’ over new album

Asked if “there was a looseness” to making her latest record – which comes just one year after Norman Fucking Rockwell! – the 35-year-old said: “Not really. I’ve been really stressed about this album. From the top, we knew what Norman was. But with Chemtrails, it was like, ‘Is this new folk? Oh, god, are we going country?’ Now that it’s done I feel really good about it, and I think a defining moment for this album will be ‘White Dress/Waitress.'”

Describing the inspiration behind the song, De Rey recalled to Antonoff, “We did that early on, and it started with you just playing the piano. We were at Jim Henson’s studio,” as the producer added, “Being watched over by a giant Kermit.”

Lana continued, “Oh my god, I know. I loved that. What I like about that song is that for all of its weirdness, when you get to the end of it, you understand exactly what it’s about.”

“I hate when I hear a song that has a great melody, but I have no idea what they’re talking about. In the grunge movement, a lot of the lyrics were super abstract, but the melodies and the tonality were such a vibe that you felt like you knew exactly what the singer was thinking.”

“Nowadays, you get a beautiful melody but you don’t really know what the person is talking about, or if it’s even important to them.”

Lana also detailed her doubts, saying she wasn’t sure if the album was “perfect” enough, saying that she wished she hasn’t been “so distracted” in her personal life.

“The one thing that makes me upset is that if I hadn’t been so distracted with my personal life and my poetry, I could’ve broken it down in a more delicate, precise way,” she said.

“I guess the way I could’ve done that is just by adding one more defining song to it. Right now it’s really, really good, but I don’t know if it’s perfect, and that really bothers me. I think I need to add that song, ‘Dealer’, where I’m just screaming my head off,” she mused.

“People don’t know what it sounds like when I yell. And I do yell.”