Top Five Lana Del Rey Songs

Lana Del Rey was once just a misty chanteuse who only sang sad songs, always sort of there in the popular imagination, with her big eyes and long false lashes which she blinked slowly and languidly. Her soft lush beats and versatile voice, which she dares to make her trademark dark contralto, and lyrics that make you worry for her life, because you can never quite tell if they are real or if they are subtitles for a melodramatic Hollywood fantasy… Let it wash it over you every night, and wake up the next morning feeling somehow refreshed and safer.

Get ready for this top five that features Lana’s best, including a little bit from every album, and not the famousand expected singles like “Summertime Sadness.” Take a little escape through your headphones from all the craziness of school, to California beaches or a dark paradise.

5. “Mariners Apartment Complex” from “Norman Fucking Rockwell” (coming 2019)

“Think about it, the darkness, the deepness. / All the things that make me who I am.”

This is a soft, moody one, but with Lana’s newly evolved sense of quiet positivity and forgiveness. Dreamy synth floats above the cool, busy rhythm of her singing, which mimics the ocean waves that she sings about. The music video is understated black and white. She sits in white tennis shoes and plays with a butterfly with her friend. Good for when you need a comforting voice to get you through your midterms, because Lana’s got you — as she tells you, “I’m your man.”

4. “High by the Beach” from “Honeymoon” (2015)

“All I wanna do is get high by the beach. / Get high by the beach get high.”

This is a dreamy one, and the music video is... something. She floats around her beach house, until she pulls a machine gun out of her guitar case and shoots down a helicopter which had been tailing her as paparazzi. But all she really wants to do is to get high by the beach. Good for when you want to get away from it all, from the cold Boston winters and long nights in Lamont, and just run away to California, pitch a tent in the sand and “get high by the beach get high.”

3. “Brooklyn Baby” from “Ultraviolence” (2014)

“Yeah my boyfriend’s pretty cool. / But he’s not as cool as me.”

This song will fulfill your fantasies of “churning out novels like / Beat poetry on Amphetamines.” Soft guitar strums and drum beats welcome in Lana’s voice, which floats above the fray and sounds like it is coming from far away — Good for midday naps.

2. “Video Games” from “Born to Die” (2011)

“It’s better than I ever even knew. / They say that the world was built for two.”

This is her classic, the first song that made her famous, a must-listen. Her soft low drawl is unforgettable, and you’ve probably heard it before in the supermarket. Good for when all you really want in life is beer, video games all day, and true love.

1. “Old Money” from “Ultraviolence” (2014)

“Blue hydrangea, cold cash divine. / Cashmere, cologne, and white sunshine.”

It’s hard to write about this one, because it’s hard to write about things you love the most. This one is so simple, just her voice and a lonely piano for most of it, dreaming of past days of old money and glamour (probably a nod to the song she wrote for the “Great Gatsby” film.) Nostalgia and longing for home fills this song, and in such simple words: “But if you send for me you know I’ll come. / But if you call for me you know I’ll run. / I’ll run to you I’ll run run run. / I’ll come to you I’ll come come come.”

Honorable mention: “Lust for Life” Album Trailer

Lana plays a fortune teller or witch in a Twilight Zone-style version of Hollywood that was the setting in the trailer for“Lust for Life.” She paces around a small apartment in the middle of the “H” of the Hollywood sign, and prepares to cast a magic spell. (Witchcraft seems to be one of her new interests — last year, she announced on Twitter that she tried to hex Donald Trump when he was elected president. Do you think it worked?) “What shall I cook up for the kids today?” she asks as she brings her hands together.

—Staff writer Faith Pak can be reached at faith.pak@thecrimson.com.