Today, Lana Del Rey is seen as an icon of West Coast elegance and mystery, waxing poetic about her California home in tracks such as “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd” and the aptly named “California” and “West Coast.” Before the West Coast swept her up, though, Lana Del Rey spent the first 28 years of her life on the East Coast, and she is always sure to pay homage to her roots. This is done no better than in 2014’s “Brooklyn Baby,” a smooth, melodic, and almost sultry tune that invites listeners to put on their rose-tinted glasses and romanticize Brooklyn.
Lana Del Rey’s history with New York traces all the way back to 1985, when she was born Elizabeth Grant in Manhattan. When she was still an infant, her family moved north for a quieter life in the Adirondacks, and she spent her childhood and early teen years in Lake Placid. After beginning to struggle with heavy drinking, though, her parents chose for her to attend a boarding school in Connecticut.
Once she achieved sobriety and graduated, she took a gap year to spend time with her aunt and uncle in Long Island, who first fostered her passions for music. Around this time, she began writing songs and performing at clubs throughout the five boroughs under the name Lizzy Grant, and at the end of her gap year, she decided to attend Fordham University in the Bronx, where she graduated from in 2008.
“Brooklyn Baby” was released in June 2014 as the fourth single from Lana Del Rey’s sophomore album, Ultraviolence, which is now revered as one of her most critically acclaimed bodies of work. Riding off the success of 2012’s Born to Die and its hit single “Summertime Sadness,” Ultraviolence helped refine Del Rey’s style and solidify her as a serious player in the pop music industry. With her sophomore album, Del Rey traded catchy pop hooks for a smoother sound profile that is as sultry as it is melancholic. Lyrically and sonically, she calls back to the soft rock sound of the 1960s and 70s, romanticizing the era at its best in “Brooklyn Baby” (“They think I don’t understand // The freedom land of the seventies”).
From the first few guitar strums and delicate hums of Del Rey’s ethereal voice, listeners are immediately overcome with nostalgia for a 1970s world that many of them (Del Rey included) were not even alive for. The addictive melody immediately draws you in and transports you to a bustling, culture-filled, 1970s Brooklyn. Though the song is just shy of six minutes long (on the longer side for a 2010s pop track), it never drags on or bores you. The closing guitar strums, a reiteration of the ones that opened the track, leave you yearning for more, inspiring you to maybe just let the song loop so you never leave this unbeatable feeling of warm nostalgia…