Someone who has never heard Lana Del Rey’s song “Young and Beautiful Lyrics” must be living on another planet since this song came out in the year 2013 and was done for the Great Gatsby movie soundtrack. The song links love, beauty, and death, all in the tune of Del Rey’s angelic voice. In this article, I will analyze the Young and Beautiful song in terms of lyrical analysis, meaning, symbols, and culture.
Introduction to “Young and Beautiful Lyrics”
“I will be very often defined as songs from ‘The Great Gatsby’ soundtrack, specifically with the popularity of one track, “Young and Beautiful Lyrics.” This summer’s spectacular film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel features Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby and Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan. Lana Del Rey is perfectly associated with the film’s aesthetics and very mood as “Young and Beautiful” acts as the film’s main song, in my opinion.
The song reacted positively for its beautiful, sad tune, consisting of 1980s pop, orchestral arrangements, and cinematic foundation of the World Music star – Lana Del Rey. Its lyrics, which challenge the reality of beauty and the existence of love, make it a music piece regarding the theme of youth and the realities of time. For people to get the measure of the impermanency of youth and the distressing desire to remain beautiful, the songs are dedicated to these subjects.
Breaking Down the Lyrics: A Reflection on Beauty and Impermanence
The words chosen in the song “Young and Beautiful Lyrics” are tender yet sorrowful. The main idea concerns beauty—physical and spiritual— as well as the danger of losing it. This loss of youth or beauty is the song’s foundation, which bears the subtending fears deep in many people during aging.
Verse 1: The Plea for Reassurance
The beginning of the song provides the key theme of the song, which is, therefore, important in explaining the whole theme of the music, which is love:
“It means I have traveled the world, did everything that one could do, and had my share of life.
Diamonds are brilliant, and Bel Air is now.
Relatively warm summer nights in mid-July, I’m glad that we were never anything more than temporary lovers.
The crazy days, the city lights, the way you would toy with me as with a child.”
In these first lines, the speaker contemplates the topics of a life of luxury, traveling, having one’s diamond, and passion while being reckless with feelings ‘forever wild.’ The romantic, gorgeous, and hot summer nights and the city lights perfectly describe the features of youth that are full of passion and energy. The longing for such a time, as if everything was simple and would last forever, suggests that deep down, everyone is afraid of the end of these moments.
The subtitle to the section where she says he has been playing with her like a child also fits into the mentor/ protégé power play. It’s a social critique of the gentler variety, famous for showing how others can quickly take advantage of young and beautiful people.
The phrase “had my cake now” means that one has had their fill and done everything they fancied, but there is always a feeling that something is still lacking. This brings in existentialism, something that grows stronger in the chorus.
Chorus: The Fear of Losing Beauty
Will you still love me when I don’t look like a movie star or a supermodel?
“I wonder, do you care for me still like you did when I own diamonds and pearls but brought you pain in exchange with my aching heart?”
Instead, the chorus is the critical message that reveals the main concern related to love and youth. He then questions if the love he receives is only given if he is still beautiful. This is a common theme in relationships, primarily in societies where pressure is applied on individuals to engage in physical appearance. Success becomes associated with physical attractiveness, and just like attractiveness, success fades once the most superficial aspect of a person is gone.
The “nothing but my aching soul” added to this line makes the fear of being abandoned when youth fades even worse. It is acceptance of the lack that people face when externalities that form the validation container are lost. The “aching soul” means there must be an inner hurting; it could be fear of being loved for the wrong reasons. It is a desperate cry for someone to hold and tell that it is okay, no matter that it will age one day.
Verse 2: The Inevitability of Change
The second verse adds even more sorrow to the song, which describes how people have to grow old and fear this process deep down:
Yes, I know you will, I know you will, I know that you will.
I know you will only love me when I am young and stunning, but still, you fall in love with me.
Here, the speaker tries to convince themselves that they will be able to get the opposite gender interested in them, saying, “I know you will.” It is a rather pathetic bid to try and make themselves and their beloved understand that love does not discriminate based on the body. But there is a lingering hint of uncertainty, which tells that the singer is not entirely sure that this kind of love will stay once the singer is no longer young.
This repetition of reassurance is also an internal argument of people in today’s relationships, where they desire permanency and stability of their love but act as if they know better and there is no such thing.
Bridge: A Moment of Reflection and Desire for Reassurance
The song’s bridge shows concerns of generation and withers of youthful nature and the speaker’s pleas for love to go beyond physicality:
In English, I have traveled the globe and experienced everything, and now it’s time to sit jam.
Diamonds Brilliant and Bel Air now.
Ah, warm summer nights, middle of July, when we were out of control and young.”
This section resulted from the repetition effect concretized in the first verse, which resurrects the imagery of life fraught with experiences but couched in a mournful formal repetition. When using the words ‘when you and I were forever wild,’ the speaker sees fits of great wild passion in him and wants to cling to such moments, but simultaneously knows that such moments can never last in this way.
During these lines, the speaker echoes the past as he clutches at a future of love while fully aware that nothing remains forever.
Symbolism in “Young and Beautiful Lyrics”
To my mind, the text of “Young and Beautiful Lyrics” is very symbolic; this is why the song can be considered not only as a love song. One finds several symbols reoccurring in the lyrics, giving the song further interpretations related to love, beauty, and mortality.
- Diamonds: Diamonds represent the high life, glamour, and even eternity but are complex, lifeless stones. In the beginning, the thought of the diamond was to portray greatness, wealth, or perhaps the materialistic aspect of life and the busy ‘life’ people live, but this line also has a hidden message. This contrast is meant to show the contrast between the beauty of the moment and the strength of love.
- Bel Air: Los Angeles’ wealthy neighborhood, Bel Air, represents excess and privilege in the film. That’s why its inclusion in the lyrics depicts the life of glamour and other luxury. However, while addressing the specificity of the world presented by the series, the power of love is described as eternal and, therefore, Bel Air is changed into a symbol of temporariness.
- Hot Summer Nights: Summer nights are associated with warmth, freedom, and passion. And death, of course, is a temporary entity much akin to the speaker’s love in his immature prime. The image of a hot summer night connects sexual passion and the process of exhausting both youth and beauty. As the sun sets while preparing for autumn, the same happens with the young preparing for being old.
- The Soul: In the last part of the song, rarely could the actual message be anywhere else than in the line of the chorus, where the term ‘aching soul’ should be seen as the underlying concept of the song. As a symbol, the soul means a person’s character, their true self, an essence deeper and more critical than, for instance, the face. The use of the soul in the song acts as a way of saying that as beauty diminishes, the inner and deep feeling of self is eternal. Even when there is a sore heart, the appeal for love calls for more than just the physical touch, though it points to the physical one.
The Role of “Young and Beautiful Lyrics” in The Great Gatsby
While its lyrics are sufficient to tell the story of beauty, love, and death, the song also fits into the framework of The Great Gatsby. The book looks at a character named Jay Gatsby, a man who thinks he can bring back a past that cannot be changed, and Daisy Buchanan, the woman he pursues fruitlessly. In several aspects, the song reflects the concepts seen in The Great Gatsby, the idea of the unreachable dream, and the disappointment that goes with it.
Like the young and beautiful so beloved in the song, Daisy Buchanan is also introduced into the novel as an embodiment of the traditional female stereotype: girl – beauty – wealth. This way, Gatsby’s pursuit of Daisy, his attempt at restoring the past distorted by the present, and his passion belongs to the realm that the song is afraid of having been lost. As for both the music and the novel, they have to do with the gossamer veil that people weave around the facets of life, such as youth, love, and beauty, only to be torn asunder by the ugly naked face of betrayal.
This general comparison of the reality of wealth, youth, beauty, and time’s flow constrains one’s existence, and its application, when performed in the novel and the song, makes it a current commentary on human life’s limitations. In both tragedies, covetousness for the past causes a great deal of suffering, and the transience of beauty symbolizes the impossibility of reclaiming the past.
Conclusion
The song by Lana Del Rey, ‘Young and Beautiful Lyrics,’ depicts the power of love, youth, beauty, and aging. The meaningful song is about everyone who once thought how love stays with and does not break to the moments when external and internal beauty fades away. In this way, we analyze the singing and lyrics of “Young and Beautiful Lyrics “by Lana del Ray, which reflect the impermanence of life and the unreliability of love.
As an audience, we are constantly told that physical or emotional beauty is transient. However, at the same time, it speaks about love as something more severe and suggests thinking about what actually lies at the core of relationships. It is a song that doesn’t seek to define love but provokes people into thinking about the money, youth, and sex appeal that society so broadly imposes in search of something even more profound and longer lasting.
Whether or not one is young and beautiful, the song’s message is clear: therefore, if there is such a thing as love, it should be beyond time. Only feelings and the material that references the close ones remain when they transform and pass away. “Young and Beautiful Lyrics” may be a song about loss, but the message is also about hope and love.
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