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Why does Lana Del Rey self-sample her songs?
Across her discography, Lana Del Rey regularly refers back to early lyrics and melodies, sampling herself to draw a connection between her works beautifully.
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(Credits: Raph Pour-Hashemi)
Music » Features » Music Opinion
Wed 22 January 2025 4:00, UK
The world of Lana Del Rey is immersive and always has been. Alongside her debut album, Born To Die, in 2012, the artist released a short film called Tropico, which quite literally traced to the genesis of the world as if her fans were being brought into a whole new one. There’s a curriculum to learn within it as she references a select library of other texts and tracks, but as she also regularly references herself, it’s her self-sampling that completes the circle, keeping listeners within.
It was when Del Rey released her latest effort, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, in 2023 that her use of her own music became more apparent. She pointed it out for her fans, calling its closing track ‘Taco Truck x VB’ as she played back ‘Venice Bitch’ from her earlier record, Norman Fucking Rockwell. It was a unique move. Artists sampling other songs is common. Artists releasing remixed or reworked versions of their own songs during their release cycle as a bonus treat is common, or offering up a different studio version years, even decades later, as an anniversary treat is common. However, for an artist to replay their own song on an album only a little while later and use it as a way to close out a new chapter, Del Rey’s decision felt singular.
But it seemed as though Del Rey simply couldn’t think of a better way to put it than she already had or a better song to capture a certain mood than her own. Both songs seem to speak to the same feeling. On ‘Venice Bitch’, she sings about desiring a life where she and her partner live in contentment while both achieving their dreams. Its more abstract form tells of a messy sort of desire where Del Rey is dreaming up this future, knowing who she wants in it, but is also intoxicated by the dance of getting it. On ‘Taco Truck’, she seems to have made it there. “Met my boyfriend down at the taco truck”, she starts, weaving a similarly loose form of messy sentiments around contentment and yearning. So, as the newer song breaks into its final third, it feels like Del Rey already knew what she wanted to say because she’s said it before, “It’s me, your little Venice bitch.”
Talking Heads famously sang, “Say something once, why say it again?” and for Del Rey, that seems to ring true. Why would she attempt to find some new way to say what she already said perfectly the first time?
‘Taco Truck x VB’ is the most obvious answer, but she’s been at this for a long time. ‘Ultraviolence’ is another perfect example as she reaches way back into her discography again to pluck lines from ‘Fucked My Way Up To The Top’ from her debut. While often a forgotten track, the song feels like a key one when it comes to figuring out the character of Lana Del Rey. Especially on those early albums, the singer appeared as this seductive icon that was part Golden Age starlet, part Nymphet, part Bonnie and Clyde style ride-or-die lover and part harlot. On ‘Fucked My Way Up To The Top’, she leans fully into the latter for one of her most explicit and daring songs, making it a perfect track to connect to ‘Ultraviolence’, another somewhat controversial song.
(Credits: Lana Del Rey)“Lay me down tonight in my linen and curls, lay me down tonight, Riviera girls” is heard echoing in a refrain, taken from the pre-chorus of her debut track. Once again, it feels like an example of Del Rey saying something perfectly the first time, intoxicatingly drawing this image of the perfect protagonist for her music as a glamorous showgirl – so why could she ever mess with that when she could simply play the track back?
But even if Del Rey isn’t directly sampling herself, her songs remain in conversation. ‘The Grants’ “Do you think about heaven, do you think about me?” seems to refer back to ‘Say Yes To Heaven’, singing, “Say yes to heaven, say yes to me”. ‘A&W’ contains a mention of “Jimmy”, a name that comes up again and again in her songs as if written as her protagonist’s ongoing love interest. “I love to, love to, love to, love you/ I hate to, hate to, hate to, hate you” in ‘Let The Light In’ harks back to ‘Music To Watch Boys To’ as she sings “Live to love you/ And I love to love you/ And I live to love you, boy”. These are only a few of the connections as a huge mess of a map drawing lines between songs from across albums and years could be plotted out.
But why? – that’s the question. Lana Del Rey is not shy about sampling or referencing a selection of her favourite songs. Across her discography, she calls towards songs from people like Elvis Presley, Snoop Dogg, Tom Petty and more, nodding towards poets and authors too. It’s also clear that Del Rey has never run out of words, and her songs have gotten longer and more poetic over the years. She’s also released poetry books as her way of using words only grows.
Instead, it seems that Del Rey’s self-sampling and referencing of her old music draw her work into a perfect circle in which her listener is in the middle. From the moment she emerged with her debut, Del Rey was arguably peerless. No one else was making music as cinematic as her or merging genres, sounds and ideas in the way she was. She arrived with a complete vision of the type of artist she would be, so her references back to her own work feel like a statement that she remains singular and that sometimes, if she wants to capture a certain energy or articulate a certain feeling in her own distinct way, she can rely on only herself and the past versions of herself to do it well.
Her self-sampling keeps her world immersive as the same atmosphere floats through her albums no matter how she develops as an artist, making it clear that any other references to the outside world of music and culture are specifically chosen and invited into this intoxicating artistic realm.
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