Tag: Lana Del Rey Dealer

If any chanteuse (still living, at least) can identify with the struggles of addiction, it’s Lana Del Rey. After all, her teenage alcoholism is part of what landed her in boarding school exile. Hence, her numerous songs alluding to these struggles, these demons—whether written during or after the period she battled the hardest with it (hear: “Boarding School,” “Get Drunk,” “Off to the Races,” “This Is What Makes Us Girls” and “Bartender,” to name a few). And yes, her predilection for addiction has often extended toward “bad men,” to boot. 

Her own track called “Dealer,” however, is less personal and more geared toward “someone else’s narrative.” A sweeping, tongue-in-cheek number she worked on with The Last Shadow Puppets back in 2017, when she called what they were doing “a little rock band on the side.” Among the songs to see the light of day from that project were “California” (which appears on Norman Fucking Rockwell), “Thunder” and “Dealer” (the latter two appearing on Blue Banisters). Another, “Loaded,” was “given” to Miles Kane, whose vocals might be the core of what makes the single memorable (much more memorable than the album it hails from, Coup de Grace), but there’s no denying the songwriting style is decidedly “Del Reyian.”

As it is on Lola Young’s “d£aler,” the third single (following “One Thing” and “Not Like That Anymore”) from her forthcoming third album, I’m Only Fucking Myself (or I’m Only F**king Myself, for the more sensitive types). And, similar to “Not Like That Anymore,” “d£aler” emphasizes Young’s attempts to be less self-destructive, and more self-care oriented. Though God (or whoever) knows that’s usually much easier said than done. 

Co-produced by Solomonophonic and Manuka (who also co-wrote the lyrics with Young), the song’s jaunty sound doesn’t quite align with some of Young’s woeful musings, including the opening verse, “I spent all day tryna be sober/I drowned in my misery, crawled up on the sofa/And I still love him/The way I did when I was nineteen, but it’s not easy to let him know/I spent all day wishin’ the day was over.” The complex, dichotomous emotions Young conveys are akin to Lana Del Rey screaming on her “Dealer,” “I don’t wanna live/I don’t wanna give you nothing/‘Cause you never give me nothing back/Why can’t you be good for something?/Not one shirt off your back.” 

In a similar fashion, Young has grown weary of her own lover, which, in this case, doesn’t just refer to a literal person, but also drugs—and self-sabotage itself. Her greatest love. And, as she stated of the overarching theme of I’m Only Fucking Myself, “[It’s] my ode to self-sabotage, my chance to claw myself back from the edge of defeat.” In order to do so, she must give up on all her unhealthy habits/coping mechanisms that have held her back up until now, ergo her entire life. This entire version of herself that now needs to be shed like an unwanted skin. Because sometimes, running away from yourself (de facto, your problems) really is the best way to start over. Which is why Young belts out in earnest, “I wanna get away, far from here/Pack my bags, my drugs and disappear.” Okay, so she can’t quite give up the drugs just yet. But what did you expect? The “cold turkey” approach is impossible.  

So it is that she seems to be addressing her tangible (read: fuckable) lover more than drugs when she sings, “Tell you, ‘No,’ make it clear/That I’m not coming back for fifteen years/I wanna write a note, leave it with/My next door neighbor who don’t give a shit/I wanna get away, far from here/Pack my bags and tell my dealer I’ll miss him.” Or, as Miles Kane, through Lana Del Rey’s “Dealer,” puts it, “Please don’t try to find me through my dealer/He won’t pick up his phone.” In other words, the people in both of these songs no longer want to be contacted or found by the erstwhile toxic presences in their life. Opting to start anew in one way or another, even if it’s not as drastic as leaving town and ghosting everyone in order to really “begin again.” Indeed, Enid (Thora Birch) from (the appropriately titled) Ghost World’s “number one fantasy” comes to mind when listening to Young’s song. That Enid fantasy being, “I used to think about one day just not telling anyone and going off to some random place. And I’d just disappear and they’d never see me again.” 

Young certainly captures that fantasy in the Conor Cunningham-directed visualizer for “d£aler,” which features her looking behind her (a.k.a. at the viewer) from the back seat of a convertible with the blow-up doll version of herself (the same one that appears on her album cover) “driving.” This itself serving as a kind of metaphor for how she never really feels that in control of her own actions. As though operating from an entirely dissociated perspective. But whatever “POV” you look at it from, “d£aler” (British-ified in its spelling or not) has some marked similarities to what Del Rey and Kane are putting down in their song of the same name. Closing it out with, “555 [this indicating that they’re giving out a fake number to anyone who tries to reach them]/Please don’t try to find me through my dealer (9275, 555)/He won’t pick up his phone (now you’ve got a busy tone)/All circuits are busy, goodbye/All circuits are busy, you’re high.” 

In addition to channeling some Del Rey energy on this single (aside from the title alone), the comparisons that Young so often gets to Amy Winehouse remain accurate as well. Except that, ironically enough, “d£aler” is, in essence, her anti-“Rehab.” Her declaration that she’s getting “clean.” Or at least trying to become less self-destructive. Not just by moving away from her dealer, but by quitting a relationship that’s ultimately unhealthy. If only Winehouse had done the same with Blake Fielder-Civil before it was too late. For if anyone needed to “tell you, ‘No,’ make it clear/I’m not coming back for fifteen years,” it was Winehouse. But hopefully, her story can still serve as a cautionary tale about the pratfalls of gravitating toward all that is bad for you to someone like Young. In turn, funneling that tale through her own music.