The Lana Del Rey song inspired by Vladimir Nabokov
Lana Del Rey is no stranger to using literary references within her work. The singer-songwriter began making music in the early 2000s, and throughout the years, she has sprinkled her creations with countless allusions to Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Allen Ginsberg, Friedrich Nietzsche, Slyvia Plath, Tennessee Williams and many more.
However, there is no creative figure that Del Rey quotes quite like Vladimir Nabokov, more specifically, his controversial 1955 novel Lolita. The book is narrated by a paedophile named Humbert Humbert, who becomes infatuated with a twelve-year-old girl, Dolores, who he nicknames Lolita. Upon the novel’s release, it was banned in the United Kingdom and France for multiple years.
Despite the uncomfortable themes that Nabokov presents, Lolita is sublimely written and exposes the inner workings of a truly horrific character. In Del Rey’s catalogue of unreleased songs and Born to Die era tracks, the singer frequently incorporates direct quotations from the novel or thematic references to communicate her past experiences of abusive and tumultuous relationships.
One of the most prominent examples appears in the track ‘Off to the Races’, which begins with the lines, “My old man is a bad man/ But I can’t deny the way he holds my hand”, clearly alluding to an older lover comparable to Humbert. Then Del Rey quotes the iconic first line of Lolita, singing: “Light of my life, fire of my loins.” A further allusion comes in the lines “gimme them gold coins”, which echoes scenes in the novel where Humbert pays young Lolita to perform sexual acts for him.
“I’m your little scarlet, starlet,” is a direct reference to a quote from Humbert: “Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet. Age: five thousand three hundred days. Profession: none, or ‘starlet.'” Furthermore, “kiss me on my open mouth” also references the line “then my darling would draw away with a nervous toss of her hair, and then again come darkly near and let me feed on her open mouth”.
Each of these references suggests that the intense, alcohol-fuelled relationship that Del Rey is detailing hides a much darker undercurrent and is inevitably doomed.
More references to the novel come in the track ‘Carmen’, a nickname that Humbert gives Lolita. The narrator pens a poem for the object of his affection that contains the lines, “Dying, dying, Lolita Haze”, which Del Rey uses in the lines “I’m dyin’, I’m dyin'”. Then there is the song ‘Lolita’, which references the title character. She sings: “No more skippin’ rope, skippin’ heartbeats with the boys downtown”, along with “And my suntan, short dress, bare feet, I don’t care”, which alludes to Lolita’s loss of innocence.
Unreleased cuts such as ‘1949’ and ‘Put Me in a Movie’ also reference the novel, with the latter containing the haunting line, “Come on, you know you like little girls.”
Although Del Rey has moved away from referencing the novel since her 2012 album, her popularity has helped to keep Lolita‘s legacy alive by exposing the novel and its film adaptations to new generations of fans.
