I Wore a Flower Crown in 2012

Me and Lana Del Rey were born to die.

2012 was the year I started wearing a flower crown.

A year in which half of us thought that the world would end. Many of us, myself included, wished it would. The recession was only four years earlier and most families were still feeling the effects, it was an election year with a winner that seemed guaranteed so there was hope. 2012 was the year Lana Del Rey released Born to Die. It dropped towards the end of my birth month but I don’t remember it swirling around me until spring. It soundtracked a summer that felt bigger than it was because I was fifteen. My parents let me watch SNL growing up so I remember Lana Del Rey’s first big performance about a week before the album’s debut. At 11:30pm when musical guests give their final kiss goodnight to the audience, she was stiff, running her fingers through her hair at her most extravagant. But her voice was rich. It was morose and captivating. The performance was uncomfortable for everyone involved. 2012 was uncomfortable for most people involved. I often think about Lana’s punishment that began during the year that was ending. She had a stage name, she was pouty and sultry, and worst of all, she made pop music. How dare she be young, beautiful, talented, know it, and not care? I already loved the infamousness. The album itself was indulgent and I consumed every part of it, enveloped in Lana’s reality. She was never truly depressed, just bored. Wishing she was romanced and anywhere but here. You develop a certain kind of empathy (albeit a stretch) for Lana when listening to Born to Die during a class period designated to completing an online class you have to take because you’re in fact depressed and bored. After school me and Andrew would sometimes go to his house to play video games. 2012 was also a big year for Call of Duty and playing it with a headset. We were not good at Call of Duty and got called various genital-related names often. Andrew was the one whose text I received on my clunky phone about Lana. He stayed up late to watch SNL that night too. We loved “Video Games” most, with the castrated church bells ringing in and out and the inexplicable smell of summer on it. “It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you, everything I do”. Wouldn’t that be nice to feel? Love didn’t need to be so serious, it could just be watching the swing of lust and fantasy gravitate up and down. It’s how I saw my friend’s crushes, how I felt sure they would dissipate and my friend would return to tell me about the kiss. And in my teenage invincibility I sometimes further simplified an already uncomplicated song, did Lana write a song just for us?

 I was not Lana, I pulled off a flower crown out of pure undeserved confidence, not out of looks. My makeup always smeared no matter what I did and video games weren’t enough to ease what you think you should be at age fifteen. I wanted a taste of her music, the lick of the lollipop. So glamorous to be whisked away into a world of sugar daddies and men who mistreat you but to still know you’re the shit. And what teenager doesn’t want escape and glamor? Lana was more wanted than any other girl in the room and I was incidentally awkward with a severe lack of self awareness. I would apply red lipstick and cat eyes while Born to Die played on an iTouch, careful not to get any makeup mushed into the carpet. Lana has an ability to romance you into motivation. She is the devil on your shoulder haloed in flowers whispering in your ear about the 27 Club, convincing you that race tracks and car rides with older men will be idyllic even though we both know it doesn’t end well. “Off to the Races” perfectly embodies the tragic glamour of the album. Pop music for late stage capitalism. I wasn’t really old enough to know exactly what she was talking about. Oddly enough, decidedly straight edge, I did not have sex and was not interested in activities that could include drugs or sex. But she made it all sound so lush, it’s impossible to not be enticed by her world. Born to Die did not cause me to act in teen lust and anguish. But it provided an adult-sounding fantasy. I knew, even if I projected myself there to Coney Island, it would break my heart with coke. I wanted queen and harlot status. Maybe there was something to being kept as someone’s silky, naughty pet. A false craving that left many teenagers confused, moms upset, and men upset but for different reasons. But no matter how Lana was critiqued for using her femininity to her power or falsely romanticizing tragedy, we listened. It got radio play, and not just on Q101, on B96 too. It’s fascinating. During a year where Nicki Minaj was taking over billboards but preaching the importance of female independence in her private life and politics were starting to creep onto the teenage radar, Lana was saying fuck that. Use what they’ve already given you to take what you want. All of her songs carry a sleeper cell message: hop in the car with him, run away, take his money, get your heart broken. The thing about Born to Die is that you want a bite of the unfortunately romanticized story. None of the perfect shade of red (flags) stopped us from wanting to wear the flower crown too, from wanting to be wanted more than anything else.