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Lana Del Rey has addressed her reputation for being drawn to "bad guys" in a new interview - a reputation that comes from lyrics and quotes that allude, across her Born To Die, Ultraviolence and Honeymoon albums, to somewhat unhealthy relationships.
Del Rey often nurtures a submissive persona in her lyrics - sometimes to a controversial extent. In 'Ultraviolence', for example, she sings, "I can hear sirens, sirens / He hit me and it felt like a kiss" (though this is a reference to a Crystals song from 1963). There is often - it's worth pointing out - a layer of detached irony underneath these lyrics.
In an email interview with NME, via answers that came three months after the magazine sent the questions, Del Rey explained that her songwriting combines "real life and imagination."
"When it comes to guys," she explained, "I haven’t courted bad guys into my life but I think because I was artistic I never settled for anyone who wasn’t completely enthralled with life or with being different, and that didn’t lend any clarity to my world, although it was enriching in other ways."
Watch the video for 'Ultraviolence' below
She continued, "I think sometimes as an artist it’s difficult to know where your unique aesthetic comes from… real life and imagination and art all bend in and out of each other to create your records. I’ve found, about five years down the line from writing the first song for that record, that I am surprisingly similar to the person in those songs – mostly in the way that I have a strong sense of who I am but not a clear idea of where I’m going."
Elsewhere in the interview, she revealed that she's never been asked to record a Bond theme - despite the fact that her musical and aesthetic style is so obviously suited to 007.
She also revealed that she's in the very early stages of planning her new album, the follow-up to this year's Honeymoon.
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