“A&W” is the second single released preceding Lana Del Reys’ ninth studio album, “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.,” co-produced and co-written by long-time collaborator Jack Antonoff. While the first single from the album brought a gorgeous metaphor of a woman begging to be freed and loved like the exclusive Ocean Blvd tunnel, “A&W” bleeds feminist rage and liberation.
With skyrocketing streams since its Valentine’s Day debut, “A&W” has proved that Del Rey’s listeners are loving her inventive sound combined with her critical, reconstructive lyrics and are oh-so ready for the album’s March 24 release.
Clocking in at 7:14, “A&W” garners surprise and a worthwhile listening experience unique to Del Rey’s intense and impactful poetics, musicality and vocals. The single is unlike anything we’ve heard from the singer, yet maintains the beloved LDR sound with cool piano and warm acoustic guitar. Mimicking the structure of its title, “A&W” features two distinct musical sections blended and connected by a conjunction of blurring base and vocal backtracking.
Considering the title, Del Rey likely wrote the song draped over a booth at her local A&W, eating fried chicken and slurping a root beer float — it wouldn’t be the first of her songs to include a soda reference. More likely, the A&W she claims is the very life her lyrics describe: “the experience of being an American whore,” marking the title’s ‘A’ as American and the ‘W’ as Wh*re.
The first melody (American) mirrors the airness and stunning bridge of “Venice B***h” from her sixth studio album, “Norman F***ing Rockwell,” an equally long single from the hit record. Throughout this section, the singer uses quick, spiraling music and almost impossibly airy vocals to mark how her past frames her new attitude towards the present. Del Rey’s climb to the section’s pre-chorus is like a stairway to vocal heaven — beautifully light and angelic, juxtaposing the harsh descent to her serious chorus: “It’s not about having someone to love me anymore.”
During the former, surrender turns to revolution, reclamation turns to empowerment. In listing traits she possesses, she questions what deems a person worthy of being called a derogatory term like wh*re — used by many to sl*t-shame, victim blame and reduce the power of women within America, to which Del Rey points within the song’s second verse. If being her sexually liberated, connected, authentic and unbothered self makes her a wh*re, then Del Rey resigns: call me a wh*re, better yet, I’ll call myself one.
She sings of her multitudes: “I’m a princess, I’m divisive / Ask me why, why, why I’m like this.” By calling out the absurdity of the word, Del Rey reclaims it powerfully as her own, wearing it as a mark of her feminine rage, capability and experiences.
After decades of writing of sex, drugs and chasing older men, many critics hold jaded opinions of this singer’s lyrical focus, but “A&W” proves Del Rey is totally over public acceptance. She reiterates throughout the verses, “I mean, look at me / Look at the length of my hair, and my face, the shape of my body / Do you really think I give a damn / What I do after years of just hearing them talking?”
No longer is she interested in external validation from a lover or listeners. Instead, she has entered an era fueled by self pleasure, reclaiming the hate she received as proof of her femininity and personal expression.
Naming “A&W” its song of the week, Consequence calls the single Del Rey’s “eulogy for the American Dream,” suggesting a demonization of American romanticism seen within much of her previous work and a push towards expressing her frustrations over the dark reality of feminine experience in the United States. The old Hollywood glamor and Americana lure of tracks like “National Anthem,” “Black Beauty” and “Lust For Life” is mostly killed off within “A&W.”
Though Del Rey seems to use nostalgic rhythm to grieve the loss of her idealized America, childhood and womanhood in the first half of the song, the second half has no tears left to cry.
The second melody, “Wh*re,” takes on a more experimental beat for Del Rey, vaguely reminiscent of the singer’s early, more hyper-pop career as heard in unreleased tracks like “Ridin’” featuring A$AP Rocky and “You Can Be The Boss,” and parallels music from artists like FKA twigs, M.I.A. and Billie Eilish.
It’s campy, humorous and fun; an incredibly organized yet sloppy kaleidoscope of siren-like vocals and mixing beats and base. Within “Wh*re,” Del Rey creates a mesmerizing and disorienting bubble-pop sound that’s danceable and yummy enough to eat. The cascade from nostalgia and retrospection deliciously morphs “A&W” into an electric, exciting and sensual callout to a fictitious “Jimmy.”
Though the meaning gets lost in the excitingness of the beat, Del Rey spits enough above and below mixing sounds and colliding vocals to articulate that she’s once again over being told who she is, and is much more comfortable letting listeners know what’s up.
With “A&W,” Lana Del Rey — in her signature fashion — feeds music lovers while leaving us good and hungry for more of this new era. It seems “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.” is destined to be brimming with what Del Rey does best along with some unexpected surprises, and we can’t wait to hear more.
Clairesse Schweig is a 2022-2023 Arts & Entertainment Editor. They can be reached at cschweig@uci.edu.