Considering Lana Del Rey’s history with shilling soda pop on the side (hear: “Diet Mountain Dew” and “Cola”), one’s initial assumption about a song title like “A&W” was that, surely, it must be about yet another soda brand (especially since the ampersand in the abbreviation doesn’t actually translate to “American&Whore,” but “American Whore”). Yet no, from the moment we hear the Radiohead-esque opening (surprisingly, there are many 90s-inspired elements to the track, sonically speaking), it’s clear this is going to be about something much darker. And, having turned to prostitution as a subject matter before, Del Rey finds it an inspiration once again here.
Indeed, portions of the song’s lyrics conjure some of the images that made Del Rey iconic—including that uncomfortable one where she’s wearing a Native American headdress—in her video for “Ride” (wherein a sign for “Dad’s Root Beer” incidentally shows up), directed by Anthony Mandler. For if she was “glamorizing abuse” (as she mentioned in that infamous “open letter”) in 2012, she hasn’t stopped glamorizing prostitution in the present either. Which one might say is easy to do when you’ve 1) never done it and 2) come from a “cozy” town like Lake Placid. And yet, such towns are not without their seedy Lynchian underbellies. Something Del Rey has often tapped into in her music as well. Ironically, however, there was a time when she wasn’t familiar with his work, only visiting it after many people made the connection between her songs and his movies. So now, you have her saying things like, “Then, somehow I would be sitting in a garden and I would see David Lynch behind a red curtain with a cigarette. Some of the people I was hanging out with, I found out later, were unsavory characters, and so they played a part in the writing.”
Whoever those “unsavory characters” were, they might have helped to shape the “vibe” of “A&W,” a song in keeping with how Del Rey once described her music as “creepy and dark.” Hence, the Lynch correlation. To be sure, were it not for the mention of Rosemead (like “Arcadia,” it’s another “obscure” town in California—a trend Del Rey has become fond of using in her later work), this single could easily soundtrack Laura Palmer’s existence leading up to her brutal, supernatural murder.
Although speaking from the perspective of a “character,” Del Rey also seems to be referring to the many comments made about her own physique of late as she muses, “I mean, look at me, look at the length of my hair, 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?” As though to say she can’t be bothered to give a shit about those calling her “fat” when she’s spent so much of her life among the media firestorm. Then, of course, as it applies to the “character,” it’s about dressing in a way that’s “asking for it.” In contrast to the visuals for “Ride,” which more overtly declare that “Artist” (the character Del Rey is playing) is fucking for the cash not “just” the pleasure, “A&W” uses the word “whore” more loosely, like it could also mean “slutty,” “promiscuous,” etc. And therefore accordingly speaks to the stigma surrounding a woman who—gasp!—enjoys fucking for the sake of it. Even if that “love” of “no frills” sex arrives perhaps only after an awareness that the “true love” concept women have been sold on throughout history doesn’t actually exist. Can’t actually exist because of the way men are built. Ergo, lyrics that include, “Call him up, come into my bedroom/Ended up we fuck on the hotel floor/It’s not about having someone to love me anymore/This is the experience of being an American whore.”
Through another lens, as well, the song addresses the gradual decay of any belief in the idea of “true romance,” a degeneration that has resulted from our completely transactional society—one that post-1980s neoliberalism totally embraced. This theme is a fitting contrast against the sonic and lyrical motifs that Del Rey tends to borrow from, usually extracted out of the 1960s: a decade still powdered in the “lavender haze” (as Taylor Swift would say) notion of love—all candy hearts and eternal monogamy. But what happens when the marketing no longer works? When it starts to shift toward promoting sologamy and “ownership of the self” while simultaneously advocating for trying to peddle it to anyone who will take it? The answer: total nihilism and apathy.
This provides yet another reason why many women are utterly blasé about having been raped or sexually assaulted. They have to be for the purpose of self-preservation. Because isn’t it just “garden-variety” at this point? Especially if you’re the type of girl who likes to go out looking for a “good time”? So it is that Del Rey sings, “If I told you that I was raped/Do you really think that anybody would think I didn’t ask for it, didn’t ask for it?/Didn’t testify, already fucked up my story.”
Besides, a few “violations” here and there are but small tradeoffs for the thrills of pleasure-seeking gleaned by Del Rey’s “character.” One who acknowledges not only how actual sex workers are treated like single-serve objects, but also how, the moment you fuck a guy, he still seems to lose respect for you—like it’s the goddamn 1950s or something. To that end, Del Rey laments, “I’m invisible, look how you hold me/I’m invisible, I’m invisible/I’m a ghost now, look how you hold me now.” He’s gotten what he wanted from her, and now he can bounce. In truth, it smacks of that National Geographic-type documentary Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger) comes across in Bridget Jones’ Diary, with a male lion inserting himself into a female and the narrator remarking, “The male penetrates the female and leaves. Coitus is brief and perfunctory.” Because what other “business” (again, the transactional nature of sex) could he possibly have with her?
Apropos of narrow-minded 1950s viewpoints on “the kind” of women who warrant “respect,” Del Rey then offers up a two-tracks-in-one sort of situation as she borrows from a song pulled right from said decade: Little Anthony and the Imperials’ “Shimmy Shimmy Ko Ko Bop.” Which, yes, Nelly already thought to use long ago in 2000’s “Country Grammar (Hot Shit).” Not to mention how Arctic Monkeys also already thought to ask, “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?,” with Del Rey somewhat repurposing that sentiment via the line, “Jimmy only love me when he wanna get high.” The name “Jim” having also appeared previously in Del Rey’s oeuvre, most notably on 2014’s “Ultraviolence.” Jim was a cult leader in that context, but now he’s just a deadbeat asshole that warrants Del Rey saying, “Your mom called, I told her you’re fucking up big time.” Further adding, “But I don’t care, baby, I already lost my mind,” a sentiment that echoes what her prostitute self said in “Ride” with, “I am fucking crazy, but I am free.”
Reminiscent of “Venice Bitch” “Hope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have—But I Have It” and “White Dress” in its meandering length and penchant for storytelling-oriented lyrics, “A&W” is another clear continuation of the “world building” Del Rey has been doing since long before she ever got famous. For even her earliest unofficially released songs dissect this element of “Americana,” this type of girl. The one who fetishizes whoredom and leans into the “sadness” of it by making it a wanton lifestyle choice (e.g., “Carmen”).
For those who merely want to observe that choice from afar, this is the ideal song for it. Or for any movie (or TV show) about a prostitute that arises in the future. Even though it also would have been the perfect number to retroactively soundtrack movies like Looking For Mr. Goodbar, Pretty Woman and Leaving Las Vegas… or even Jules Vaughn (Hunter Schafer) going to that motel room to meet up with Cal Jacobs (Eric Dane) in Euphoria (a show Del Rey has actually soundtracked before with “Watercolor Eyes”). The takeaway is: Del Rey wants to confirm sluttiness as a source of resigned shame again so that it can continue to have dramatic storytelling value.
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