analysis of the song "Carmen": inspiration from Twin Peaks, Blanche Dubois & Lolita.

(SPOILERS ALERT!)

Lana here could be taking about herself while using another name (alter ego?), as she relates to the character she’s singing about in the song..

this character could be Laura Palmer, a character from Twin Peaks!

who is Laura Palmer?

"Laura Palmer is a fictional character in the Twin Peaks franchise. She is portrayed by Sheryl Lee and was created by the series creators David Lynch and Mark Frost.  A high school student whose death is the catalyst for the events of the series, Palmer is the protagonist in Lynch's prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), which depicts the final week of her life leading up to her murder."

Lana is a big fan of this show and his creator David Lynch as we can see his influences on her work clearly!

1- both Lana and Laura come from a little town where life is kind of limited! Lana from Placid Lake and Laura from Twin Peaks.

2- the character Lana sings about is a 17 years old girl, Laura is 17 years old in both the TV show and the movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With We (1992).

Lana also previously confirmed that she sings about a character and not herself:

In an interview for The Sun, Del Rey revealed that the song was about "a doomed woman who sells her body on the streets" of Coney Island, which Del Rey viewed as an "important [place] to [her]" throughout her career in New York City.[1]

According to Del Rey, she said the song feature's a main protagonist who is a 17-year old,[5] who suffers from substance abuse, which is similar to Del Rey's drinking addiction she had when she was in her late teens.

Laura suffered from drugs and alcohol and several types of abuse including emotional and physical abuse since she was 13 years old, Lana also suffered from drug abuse and alcohol addiction since she was 13/14 years old. 

3- both Laura and the Carmen's character were prostitutes (also in the music video of Ride, Lana plays the role of prostitute, both the songs Carmen and Ride are related “relying on the kindness of the strangers”).

 

NOW LET’S MOVE TO THE LYRICS

Darling, darling, doesn't have a problem
Lying to herself 'cause her liquor's top shelf
It's alarming, honestly how charming she can be
Fooling everyone, telling Hum she's having fun

Laura while doing prostitution, she wasn’t enjoying it much! she did it because she was emotionally tormented! she was an alcoholic and a drug abuser! she didn’t do it for money, but to get high.

there is a book called The Diaries of Laura Palmer! and it’s a collection of Laura Palmer’s diaries where she tries to convince herself that she doesn’t have a problem doing such things.

Laura was the most charming girl in town, all people loved her! they thought she’s innocent but Laura was not as she did things they don’t have a clue about.

also while she was doing prostitution, she used to make everyone think she was having fun, but she wan’t , she was just fooling them.

She says, "you don't want to be like me

Don't wanna see all the things I've seen"

I'm dying, I'm dying

She says, "you don't want to get this way

Famous, and dumb, at an early age

Lyingm I'm lying

in the movie Laura tells her best friend Donna that she doesn’t her to be the way Laura is.

Laura dies at 17, but she knew before her death that her life is doomed! she knew she was going to die.

as i said before that Laura was the most famous and charming girl in town everyone loved her, and she was the prom queen! but she was living a double life, that's why she didn’t want her friend to be like her.

The boys, the girls, they all like Carmen
She gives them butterflies, bats her cartoon eyes
She laughs like God, her mind's like a diamond
Buy her tonight, she's still shining
Like lightning, oh, like lightning

Laura was a prostitute, and not only the boys loves her but the girls too (there are scenes from the movie that explain this).

 

Laura had cartoon eyes, and she was always laughing and smiling to everyone despite what she was going through.

 ----------------------------------------------------

now, this line “mind is like a diamond” is what confirms that Lana had Twin Peaks on her mind while writing this song,

this exact line was used in Twin Peaks by Agent Dale Cooper, and it’s actually one of the most famous TV show quotes.

it wasn’t used to describe Laura! but it was used in the show

Carmen, Carmen, staying up 'til morning
Only seventeen, but she walks the streets so mean
It's alarming, truly, how disarming you can be
Eating soft ice cream, Coney Island queen
She says, "you don't want to be like me
Looking for fun, get me high for free
I'm dying, I'm dying"
She says, "you don't want to get this way
Street walk at night, and a star by day"

once again, Laura was 17

at midnight, Laura would wear her clothes, sneak out and start walking the streets and the woods

she used to walk the streets and do prostitution at night, and by day she would be the charming little innocent girl everyone loved, a double life

Baby's all dressed up with nowhere to go
That's the little story of the girl you know
Relying on the kindness of strangers
Tyin' cherry knots, smilin', doin' party favors
Put your red dress on, put your lipstick on
Sing your song, song, now, the camera's on
And you're alive again

if you watched the movie and the show (you can’t understand the movie if you haven’t watched the TV show first) this describes Laura perfectly (putting her dress on, lipstick on, dressing up with nowhere to go, relying on the strangers)

 

tying cherry knots and doing party favors: the place where Laura was doing prostitution is secret place! where a lot of prostitutes there have to wear the same dress, smile and do party favors)

but in order to get there you have to passe a test (which is tying the cherry knots) - to do some investigation about Laura another character from the show called Audrey Horne, tries to get in there so she does the cherry knots tying things, this is one of the most iconic scenes of the TV show! Laura was already a prostitute there! so doing cherry knots is her job.

 

in the demo version of the song, Lana uses the term cocaine heart to describe Carmen, Laura was addicted to cocaine, she used it all the time to numb her pain.

 

IMPORTANT NOTES:

- in one of her older music videos Lana tagged David Lynch, Twin Peaks, Laura Palmer & Julie Cruise (the singer who sang most of Twin Peaks's soundtrack):

- Lana and Laura share the same green ring:

- Lana wore a Twin Peaks tee more than once;

- Johnny Blue Eyes on the music video of Carmen, Laura’s character is from a world that David Lynch Created

- Lana used the theme song of Twin Peaks as a sample in her song Get Free.

- Lana said that she is a big fan of David Lynch, she was influenced by his other works other than Twin Peaks.

 - fire walk with me is a famous quote from the show, and it’s in the title of the movie that talks about Laura! Lana used this line in Sad Girl.

 - another thing that may be a reference to Laura, in the song Body Electric, Lana says Mary prays the rosary for my broken mind, and in the final scene of the movie, we see Laura crying and laughing hysterically as Mary prays for her

- “i love Donna very much, but sometimes i worry that she wouldn’t be around me at all, if she knew what my insides were like, black and dark and soaked with dreams of big, big men and different ways that they may hold me and take me in their control” - from the secret diaries of Laura Palmer! a troubled prostitute clinging to men, same character Lana portrayed in Ride.

- i said before the songs Ride and Carmen are related, because they both portray a prostitute, and share the same line “relying on the kindness of strangers”, but what does that line mean?

the line is borrowed from Blanche Dubois, another character this is similar to Lana in so many ways.

but who is Blanche Dubois?

"When our dear teacher was talking about Blanche Dubois, inevitably a song from one of my favorite singers came to my mind; "Young and Beautiful" by Lana del Rey. A part of the chorus actually reminded me Blache, because it says "...Will you still love when I'm no longer young and beautiful?..." That part is about an insecure and superficial woman, just as Blanche, who is a person that lives in fear because of the decadence of her beauty and someone who is afraid of accepting reality. After this thought, I wanted to find out if Lana uses some references form Tennessee Williams and...she does! While I was reading about it, I discovered that another song of her called  "Ride" refers to a Blanche Dubois' phrase: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers..." The the song is called "Carmen" and is about a beautiful girl who will always be helped by others, in this case strangers, because of her beauty and probably for some free action later (something that inmediately evokes sex) Finally, the last song that I will present is "Ride", in which the main character  makes referene to Blanche. In the video a girl (again), looks for safety in other people, relying in the kind of strangers. The video shows a woman who hides behind promiscuity, alcohol and lies; showing two opposites sides of her personality." - Epiphanies in Modern Times

if you are very familiar with Lana’s work andthe themes she sings about! there are so many similarities between Lana/ Carmen and Blanche Dubois, also the origin of the name Blanche Dubois name is french! in Carmen Lana sings a verse in french!

 Now why did Lana use the name Carmen for the song?

the song is inspired by a poem from the book Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, both the book and its writer are Lana's favorites, plus Lana has a song on the same record called Lolita, the song Off To The Races is inspired by the same character too.

    who is Lolita?

Dolores Haze (known variously as Lo, Lola, Dolly, affectionately as Lolita, and later as Dolores Schiller) is the primary love interest of Humbert Humbert.

- it seems that the character Lana sings about is a compilation of many girls she relates to, all of them had a troubled life, Lana sees a glimpse of herself in every character, she portrayed Lolita in many of her songs, both Lolita and Laura had daddy issues and got into messy lives against their will since their childhood, and both died when they were teens, Lana sees her younger self in them, she saw a version of her in Dolores Haze as they were both neglected by their mothers, a version of herself in Laura Palmer who was a drug abuser and an alcoholic since she was a child, and as she started to grow up, she started to relate to adult women as well, for example: Blanche Dubois, Blanche was forced into an mental faciliy by her family, Lana was forced into boarding school by her family, they both relied on the kindness of the strangers when their family abondened them, other than that, both Lana and Blanche are afraid of losing their beauty, they are afraid of reality, so they create a glamourous world of their own to escape the harsh life, references of Blanche Dubois are so present in Lana's work like Hope Is a Dangerous Thing To Have, But I Have It. (i will post analysis of the song later).

Writer's Note: i haven't read The Secret Diaries Of Laura Palmer or watched both the show and the movie for years, but i remember that there are some parts of it similar to This Is What Makes Us Girls, when i re-read it again, i will update you.