High By The Beach analysis: James Franco's obsession with Lana Del Rey.
“High By The Beach” is about escaping and seeking comfort by the sea side on the west coast. The music video emulates Lana’s frustration with media inconsistency and untrustworthiness.
“High By The Beach” was the lead single from her fourth album Honeymoon. This was the last song she wrote for the album, expressing a need for solitude and protecting herself from the outside world. She told The Current that the music video’s theme is “glamorized paranoia” as she ultimately shoots down a paparazzi helicopter outside of her beachfront home.
She wrote the song while driving by the beach and liked how it had an “Andrew Sisters meets Hip Hop” vibe. She describes the track as having a monotonous sound and a weird vibe with a trap influence. - SOURCE: GENIUS
"Boy, look at you, lookin' at me
I know you know how I feel
Lovin' you is hard, bein' here's harder
You take the wheel
I don't wanna do this anymore
It's so surreal
I can't survive
If this is all that's real"
"Boy, look at you, lookin' at me
I know you don't understand
You could be a bad motherfucker
But that don't make you a man
Now you're just another one of my problems
Because you got out of hand
We won't survive
We're sinkin' into the sand"
if you read the verses from the song, it suggests that it is about a relationship that got out of hand, a toxic partner with narcissistic traits, the other lyrics of the song as well as the music video suggest that this partner was not only toxic, but also obsessed with Lana and her life
the chorus suggests that during this relationship, Lana was not interested in anything other than getting high by the beach, this relationship seems to take place in summer.
also the line “the truth is i never bought into your bullshit when you would pay tribute to me” - indicates that this partner is a critic or a writer that showered her with compliments by praising her through his work.
if we take a look at Lana’s ex relationships, the lyrics describe James Franco, their fling was from summer 2014, to summer 2015 (exactly the time when Lana wrote both High By The Beach & Honeymoon)
Lana never confirmed the relationship, but James Franco was interested in Lana, he wanted to make movies about her, he wrote poems and a book that never got to be published (because Lana did not allow it).
anyways, in summer 2014, Lana had a photoshoot session with James by the beach, pictures were supposed to be featured in the book her wrote about her.
during these photoshoot sessions, while Franco was trying to write a book about her, and pay tribute to her, she was not really into his “bullshit”, she took it as an opportunity to enjoy the nature around her and get high by the beach instead.
Lana and James by the western coast, from the same session, 2014
let’s take some lyrics into context:
"Lights, camera, acción
I'll do it on my own
Don't need your money, money
To get me what I want
Lights, camera, acción
I'll do it on my own
Don't need your money, money
To get me what I want"
Lana borrowed the lyric “lights, camera, action” from Britney Spears, one of her biggest inspiration, she used it first in her 2010 song Put Ne In a Movie, in that song Lana was a vulnerable little girl who wanted to get famous and be in movies, she had to have relationships with people she did not necessarily like so they can get her what she wanted, in that song we can hear how desperate she was till the point where she was willing to do anything for it. in Put Me In a Movie, the person she talks about is an old man, who could be a producer or a director. we do not know who is that man.
in High By The Beach, the man she is talking about is James Franco, other than being an actor, James is a movie director and producer, he promised Lana to make a movie about her, or have her involved in other projects, but none of these projects saw the light,
one of these movies was about the the real life story of the Manson murders, Lana was supposed to play the role of Sharon Tate, an actress who was brutally killed in her house, one of the movies storyline was similar to Sunset Blvd, in which Lana is the main character, a troubled woman who gets paranoid because she thinks people are watching her.
the two movies are similar to the music video of High By The Beach, where Lana plays herself, she is living alone in her LA house by the beach, when a photographer looms over her house, distracts her from her calm and quiet world, many fans think that the photographer is a paparazzi, and that could be true, but there is another possibility, the photographer is no one other than James Franco, Lana got sick of him and she realized that she doesn’t need him or his money, she has her own money now, and she is not as desperate for fame as she was in Put Me In a Movie, if Lana wants to be in a movie, she can, she doesn’t have to please him or anyone, she will never rely on casting couch to advance her career as she did before, she can achieve what she desires on her own, and not at the expense of her inner tranquility.
other than that, James was obsessed with Lana, he took pictures of her, wanted to publish them without her consent, wrote a book and poems about her, Lana is a very private person, and his obsession with her got out of hand, he started to disturb her peace of mind, so Lana in the music video shoots the photographer down, as a metaphor for cutting James out of her life.
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