Lana Del Rey shares cover of John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’
Lana Del Rey has shared her new cover of the country classic ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’. As angelic as expected, the singer pulls all the southern glamour out of the John Denver track.
Despite being born and bred in New York, Lana Del Rey has the air of a Southern lady, in the grand lineage of June Carter Cash, Tammy Wynette, Emmylou Harris and beyond. Therefore, Del Rey’s rich and characterful voice colours this track like a country superstar.
In recent years, Del Rey has strayed far away from the R&B beats that filled her debut release, Born To Die, back in 2012. Her recent albums, such as Blue Banisters, Chemtrails Over The Country Club and Norman Fucking Rockwell, have waded into folk and country waters. The singer-songwriter merged all these clear strains of cross-genre influence into her most recent album, which received four Grammy nominations.
After releasing Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd at the start of the year, Del Rey has jumped on a string of collaborative tracks such as Bleachers’ recent release ‘Alma Mater’, Holly Macve’s stunning ‘Suburban House’ and several tracks on her father, Rob Grant’s, debut album Lost At Sea.
‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ is another stand-out moment in Del Rey’s 2023. It marks her first solo effort since the release of Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, the cover seems to further themes on the album as a perfect way to close out its release year.
Throughout the record, Del Rey sings about rejecting the industry, the expectations placed on her and the people who doubt her or purposefully misunderstand her. Now returning with the homecoming classic, it feels like an apt addition to this album era.
The cover is produced by Zachary Dawes, who worked on stand-out tracks from her latest record, notably ‘Candy Necklace’ and the beautiful country-tinged duet ‘Let The Light In’ with Father John Misty. Also working on the album’s sparse and stunning opener, ‘The Grants’, Dawes is clearly a master at drawing the simplest and sweetest work out of Del Rey.
Continuing to feed her fans well, Del Rey has already been announced for a string of festivals next year, including headline slots at Reading and Leeds in the United Kingdom and Primavera in Spain.
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