The release date for the audiobook of Lana Del Rey’s poetry collection, Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass, was leaked earlier this month (and she later confirmed it). The date was set for today, July 28, so the audiobook is out now. The audiobook isn’t currently available on streaming services, but Del Rey has shared one of its tracks individually, “LA Who Am I To Love You.”
https://twitter.com/LanaDelRey/status/1281384140978262016
She begins the poem, backed by simple-yet-evocative piano from Jack Antonoff, “I left my city for San Francisco / Took a free ride off a billionaire’s jet / LA, I’m from nowhere, who am I to love you? / LA, I’ve got nothing, who am I to love you when I’m feeling this way and I’ve got nothing to offer? / LA, not quite the city that never sleeps / Not quite the city that wakes, but the city that dreams, for sure / If by dreams you mean in nightmares.”
Del Rey says of the release, “Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass is the title poem of the book and the first poem I wrote of many. Some of which came to me in their entirety, which I dictated and then typed out, and some that I worked laboriously picking apart each word to make the perfect poem. They are eclectic and honest and not trying to be anything other than what they are and for that reason I’m proud of them, especially because the spirit in which they were written was very authentic.”
Listen to “LA Who Am I To Love You” above.
Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass is out now via Simon & Schuster Audio. Get it here.
