Have you ever been sung a lullaby by an angel? Neither have we. But we would imagine it would sound something like “Fingertips” by Lana Del Rey, except this song is not something you want to hear while you are going to get sleep.
“Fingertips” is the ninth track on Lana Del Rey’s 2023 project ‘Did you know there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd’ album. The track is a mix of a song and a whispered poem and jumps hoops through a stream of consciousness of Lana. The track is made up of a collection of voice notes Lana had recorded on her phone and entrusted the producer Drew Erickson to transform into a track worthy of an album. And the result is just outstanding.
“Fingertips” jumps across topics of birth, death, children, Lana’s childhood, adulthood, her future, her friends, family, past relationships, and questions on her existence itself.
Listen to “Fingertips” by Lana Del Rey
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Lana Del Rey “Fingertips” Lyrics Meaning and Song Review
Lana Del Rey keeps it real. She knows that life is fickle and that anybody and everybody that she knows can go away any second. She wonders if her father, sister, and brother will be there throughout her journey in life. It is interesting that she does not mention her mother here, as she has had a patchy relationship with her mother growing up.
Lana is a wise woman. She brings out the science nerd in her to namedrop ‘telomeres’ which is a part of our DNA that affects aging. When telomeres get shorter with usage, the cells are unable to reproduce and die away. When cells are unable to reproduce, our dying cells aren’t replaced as fast as you would want them to–hence, aging and death.
If she is going to beat the telomeres’ extinction, she does not want to do this alone. What is the purpose of immortality if you have to be alone? So, she wants her younger brother to stop smoking, which is a massive cause of lung cancer and accounts for about 500,000 deaths annually.
Lana also worries about her niece, Phoenix, the daughter of Lana’s sister Caroline. Will the baby have a good life ahead of her? Will she have babies of her own?
On the topic of mortality, Lana remembers her uncle, David Grant, who passed away in July 2016 by suicide at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Had she seen this tragedy coming, she would have taken him home, let him cry, make him sit next to her on a couch, and watch some TV together until the gloom passes. But you never see these coming.
To make matters worse, while the news of the death of her uncle broke, Lana was in Monaco on tour. Two hours after she received the news, she had to perform for the prince. What is she supposed to do? Nothing. She sat in the shower, cried her eyes out, got herself back up, and performed for the prince!
Lana has come close to death herself. When she was fifteen and swimming in the ocean, she almost drowned until a neighbor passing by saw and rescued her. What if nobody passed by at the time?
The only mention of Lana’s mother in the song is a memory of bitterness. She asks her sister how could a mother tell her own daughters that they would end up in a mental institution. This speaks volumes about the kind of relationship Lana had with her mother. All Lana wanted to do was live a free life, have a baby at sixteen, as everybody in the town did, and die away in the same old town she was born in. Alas, how the plans change!
I give myself two seconds to breathe
Life oftentimes throws hard punches at certain people. Usually, humans don’t give up on the first punch to the shin. But one too many of them and they start to break. It is important to remember that only you control your life. Get punched down, and the choice is with you to get back up. When things get a little over her head, Lana remembers to take a break, just for two seconds, break away from all that surrounds her, and focus and breathe. It really does help. And she goes back to being the renowned icon that she is.
Let us hear what you think about this song in the comments below. Read the complete lyrics to the song on Genius.