“Hope Is A Dangerous Thing For A Woman Like Me To Have – But I Have It” by Lana Del Rey

“Hope Is A Dangerous Thing For A Woman Like Me To Have – But I Have It” is a song recorded by American singer Lana Del Rey and released in January 2019.

In line with the song’s title, throughout the chorus, the narrator (Lana) repeatedly talks about hope being a dangerous thing for a woman like her to have. It’s not exactly clear why she says this. But what is crystal clear is the fact that the narrator isn’t a happy person. She lives a very stressed and depressed life.

Sylvia Plath Reference

During the song, she mentions the 20th century American poet and novelist Sylvia Plath. It’s noteworthy to mention that Lana has on a number of occasions referred to Plath as one of her inspirations. This song is even reported to have been originally titled “Sylvia Plath”, which is apparently an ode to this great poet.

All in all, deep in our bones, we strongly believe the lyrics of this song are inspired by Sylvia Plath. Lana even mentions Plath’s name twice in the lyrics and compares her mental state to hers!

Throughout her adult life, Plath battled severely with mental health issues. Many considered her to share some traits with a sociopath. Some plainly referred to her as a pure sociopath. Lana categorically makes mention of this mental health disorder in the second chorus of the song. There, she refers to herself as behaving “like a goddamn near sociopath”. Aside that, she talks about doing certain abnormal things that perfectly put her in that category. One of such things is writing on walls in blood (apparently her own blood). Only people suffering from mental health disorders do this.

And Sylvia Plath suffered greatly from mental illness. Before finally succeeding in taking her own life in 1963, she had attempted doing so several times. And when she eventually succeeded in committing suicide, she shockingly did it at her home – in the presence of her young children (who were asleep by that time).

Slim Aarons Reference

In addition to Plath, Lana also references noted American photographer Slim Aarons in the lyrics. She mentions Aarons’ name in the first verse and talks about reading something from him. Aarons made a successful career for himself photographing celebrities and their interesting lifestyles.

Facts about “Hope Is A Dangerous Thing For A Woman Like Me To Have – But I Have It”

• Lana wrote this song with fellow American singer and songwriter Jack Antonoff of the rock bands Fun and Bleachers.
• Having co-written this song with Lana, Antonoff proceeded to handle the entire song’s production by himself. This isn’t the first time that Lana is collaborating with Antonoff. He has worked with her on multiple occasions in the past. For example, he collaborated with her on the single “Venice Bi*ch” and “Mariners Apartment Complex”.
• This track was officially released on January 9, 2019. It came out as the third single from Lana’s 2019 album interestingly titled Norman F**king Rockwell. FYI this album is the sixth studio album of Lana’s career as a singer.
• Lana first talked about this song as far back as in February 2018 at one of her concerts in San Diego, Los Angeles. Several months later (to be precise on October 25, 2018) she surprised her fans by posting a very brief snippet of this song on Instagram. The snippet didn’t stay long there, as Lana swiftly deleted it from her page.
• On New Year’s Day 2019, Lana announced the song’s title for the first time. In doing so, she also announced that January 9th would be the date on which it would be released. And truly, it was released on that exact date!
• This became the first single Lana Del Rey released in the year 2019.
• The entire title of the song is written in lowercase. Therefore the title is actually as follows: “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but I have it“.