The Problem With Cool
Shades of Cool begins and ends with Lana Del Rey describing a love affair with her man. She describes him as dark, hard to love, impossible to understand, and overall the relationship seems like a difficult one to withstand. Presumably Lana stays in this tumultuous relationship, because by the end of the song, we can conclude that Lana has accepted her lover for who he is. Lana’s music is heavily influenced by her personal experiences. While receiving backlash from the media about inauthenticity, Lana has stated that her haunting songs are drawn from her own experiences of love and loss. She explains how her romantic relationships have inspired her to write music. She said, “When I fell in love for the first time, it was just really… inspirational, it’s a good mix knowing that you’re born to die but also being excited by true love with fleeting moments of happiness.” In a more recent interview, Lana Del Rey spoke specifically about the inspiration in which Shades of Cool stemmed from. About her long term relationship with rocker Barrie-James O’Neill, she said, “I’m a dark character and he is an even darker character than I am. Trying to get some consistency and some normality within the dynamic of that relationship has been impossible…songs like Shades of Cool came out all that.”
In the first verse, one of the words Lana uses to describe her man is blue. Blue here, serves as an ambiguous term; meaning simply the blue color of his eyes, blue as in jazz music and blue as in attitude; a sad temperament. Throughout the song Lana devotes a lot of time trying to reassure listeners as well as herself that while her man isn’t exactly faithful, when he needs someone, Lana is who he goes to. This is stated in the lines;
“And when he calls
He calls for me and not for you
He lives for love, he loves his drugs
He loves his baby too”
Lana is competing with others for her man’s affection. Love is often looked at as a drug, so he seems to be a man consumed with his vices. The fact that he loves his baby “too” suggests that she is only an afterthought, whereby his primary care is drugs. It also suggests that he really only loves women in general. Lana is just one of the women that he’s with at the moment.
The use of symbolism is actively depicted in the official music video for Shades of Cool, in conjunction with the lyrics. The video was filmed in Los Angeles and stars celebrity tattoo artist Mark Mahoney. It opens with the blue, weathered face of an older man (Mahoney) cruising through Los Angeles in a Chevy Malibu. He traverses the LA bridge before making it to Beverly Hills where he meanders seemingly confused through the empty town as the scene of the LA street at night fades in. Chevrolet Malibus and California are consistencies depicted throughout Lana Del Rey’s music. She fancies old cars- Chevi Malibus in particular, and California is said to be her favorite place.