‘Brooklyn Baby’: the Lana Del Rey song that almost featured Lou Reed
The beauty of Lana Del Rey‘s music lies in her effortless blend of old and new. In the space of one album, the singer can often be found covering classic jazz and folk songs amid hip-hop-influenced originals. She even blended Ennio Morricone’s ‘The Trio’ with a trap beat on ‘Interlude – The Trio’, a track that later featured on Blue Banisters. Although doing so could easily fall flat, Del Rey masters the art of balancing past and present, situating herself somewhere between the line.
One of Del Rey’s favourite songwriting past times is referencing, whether that be her past work or songs and icons that have inspired her. For example, in ‘Body Electric’, a song inspired by Walt Whitman’s poem ‘I Sing The Body Electric’, Del Rey alludes to or directly refers to Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Snoop Dogg, and Bruce Springsteen, creating a lucid painting of American iconography. The song contains the line “We get crazy every Friday night”, contrasting her hit track ‘Born to Die’, where she sings: “I feel so alone on a Friday night.”
In ‘Born to Die’, Del Rey also extracts direct quotes from musicians that came before her, like The Velvet Underground leader Lou Reed. She sings: “Come and take a walk on the wild side/ Let me kiss you hard in the pouring rain”. This line is taken from Reed’s iconic 1972 song ‘Walk on the Wild Side’, a famed track about the unique individuals that made up New York’s countercultural scene, such as Warhol superstars Candy Darling and Jackie Curtis.
As a member of The Velvet Underground and a solo artist, Reed became one of the most influential musicians of all time, helping to pioneer proto-punk, avant-garde and noise rock. His lyrical musings on his experiences and encounters in New York were vivid and enticing, no doubt inspiring Del Rey, who moved to the centre of the city to pursue a music career as a young adult. Talking to Vogue, she explained: “When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn – I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point – and that was it.”
New York became a central theme of her 2014 album Ultraviolence, which followed the critically acclaimed major label debut Born to Die and subsequent EP, Paradise. Although Del Rey later said that Ultraviolence was “west coast-driven”, the musician always makes her way back to her native city, just like she sings on the title track, “We could go back to New York”.
Del Rey continued: “Though it actually enhanced my love of New York as well, which was good because I was trying to get that loving feeling back for New York”.
Lana Del Rey encapsulates her love of the city best in ‘Brooklyn Baby’, where she references Beat poetry, jazz and Reed, with lyrics such as “Well, my boyfriend’s in a band/ He plays guitar while I sing Lou Reed”. However, the nostalgic track was actually set to feature the iconic musician, with Del Rey writing it with him in mind. According to The Guardian, Reed expressed interest in working with the singer, so she “took the red eye, touched down at 7am”. However, it appeared that meeting one of her idols was not meant to be – “two minutes later he died”.
Sadly, Del Rey never got to meet Reed, let alone collaborate with him. However, she immortalised his influence in the track regardless, which is one of the record’s standout moments. Revisit it below.
