hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but i have it

“hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but i have it” is the last track from Lana Del Rey’s sixth studio album, “Norman Fucking Rockwell!”, or “NFR!” for short. Written and produced by Lana Del Rey and Jack Antonoff, the song was released on the 9th January 2019.

The track makes many references to Sylvia Plath, a famous American poet, novelist and short-story writer. The track was actually originally named “Sylvia Plath”, and discusses religion, sobriety, troubled love, and Del Rey’s trouble adjusting to fame. Jack Antonoff, the song’s co-producer and co-writer released a statement on Twitter about the song a day after its release on the 10th January 2019, stating: “hope is a dangerous thing is one of 2 songs that happened the first day that lana and i were in the studio. recorded no click mostly live, felt piano + lana’s perfect vocal. sounded exactly like that in the room. this one means a lot. listen at night alone”. “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but i have it” is perhaps one of Del Rey’s most vulnerable and emotional songs, giving listeners an insight into Del Rey’s personal struggles and life. In an interview with BAZAAR magazine in February 2019, Del Rey was asked about the context of the track, to which she said: “If you read in between the lines so that you’re listening carefully, you can tell there’s a lot jam-packed into that song. I actually tried to do all my interviews before I released it, so that I wouldn’t talk about it, because it’s just one of those songs that is really personal to me for a lot of different reasons and that’s often how my music is. I jam-pack a lot of Easter eggs, one-liners that only I know what they mean… Also on a deeper level for me, having reference to family of origin and lineage, karmic lineage, and confusion that gets passed down through generational passages. I was trying to get clarity on a lot of my own stuff by putting it out.” Del Rey has previously opened up about her struggles with sobriety, which lead to her being sent to religious boarding school at 14 in an attempt to get sober: “I was a big drinker at the time. I would drink every day. I would drink alone. I thought the whole concept was so fucking cool.”

There is no music video for the song, but the official audio video on Lana Del Rey’s YouTube channel has 8.4 million views since its upload in January 2019. On Spotify, the track has over 62 million streams worldwide.

Release Date: 9th January 2019

Songwriter/s: Lana Del Rey, & Jack Antonoff

Producer/s: Jack Antonoff & Lana Del Rey

Label: Polydor

Chart Rankings: “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but i have it” performed well on global charts, ranking #31 and #24 on various Belgium charts, #45 in Canada, #68 in France, #40 in Hungary, #80 in Ireland, #50 in Lithuania, #11 in New Zealand, #77 in Scotland, #70 in Slovakia, #1 in Sweden, #99 in the UK, and #8 and #20 on various US Billboard charts.

The lyrics to “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but i have it” can be viewed here: LINK