Lana Del Rey’s “Blue Jeans” Lyrics Meaning

Anyone truly familiar with the works of Lana Del Rey knows that many of her songs center on her real-life romantic experiences. And such is the case with “Blue Jeans”.

The title of this track alludes to the idea of Lana comparing the addressee, her lover, to mid-20^th century sex symbol James Dean (1931-1955). Or stated otherwise, she’s really digging him and finds him sexy.

But more importantly is how the narrative ultimately plays out. You see, she and this guy initiated a romance which she is fully committed to, for life. However, by the time the second verse rolls around, dude has decided to bounce on her. His reason being that he has ‘big gangsta dreams’. Or another way of looking at it is that he has decided to engage in some risky behavior in the name of quick acquisition of cash.

The singer does not want him to go and in the process assures him that they “don’t need no money”. So he tricks her into believing that he will in fact stay. But at the end of the day, he does leave to ‘chase paper’, i.e. pursue money, in a dubious fashion.

So conclusively, the way Del Rey paints the situation is that even when they were together it was not an ideal relationship from her perspective. Yet regardless she was deeply in love and committed accordingly. And along those same lines she is telling this individual that her feelings for him, despite his departure, will never die.

“I will love you ’til the end of time
I would wait a million years”

Facts about “Blue Jeans”

Lana Del Rey co-wrote this song alongside Dan Heath and the track’s producer, Emile Haynie.

Interscope Records came out with “Blue Jeans” on 27 January 2012 as part of Lana Del Rey’s second album. Del Rey titled that album “Born to Die”. And the track was also later issued as the third single from that project.

Del Rey came out with three different videos for this single. The first was put together by the singer herself. The second one features her performing the song live. And lastly was a standard-narrative video which had Yoann Lemoine as its director. Said video co-starred a model by the name of Bradley Solieau, who portrays the singer’s romantic interest.

A live performance of this song, which Del Rey rendered on Saturday Night Live in early 2012, went down in infamy. First off, many people felt that at that point in her career she had not earned to right to perform at such a popular venue. And secondly, to put things succinctly, afterwards many people concluded that she bombed the performance. In fact the backlash was so severe that Lana postponed a tour she was scheduled to embark on shortly thereafter.

But the track itself proved to be a moderate hit for the artist. It charted in over 10 countries and went Gold in Canada and Italy. Moreover the video was nominated for a couple of UK Music Video Awards.