After years of hanging in the balance, Lana Del Rey will be releasing spoken word album titled Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass on July 28. The audiobook and CD/Vinyl formats are expected to include 14 of Del Rey’s poems, while the hardcover book and ebook are expected to include over 30 poems. The poems will be read by Del Rey accompanied by music from Bleachers’ Grammy Award-winning songwriter/producer Jack Antonoff. The two are friends and worked together on Del Rey’s 2019 album Norman F—ing Rockwell.
According to Del Rey, “Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass is the title poem of the book and the first poem I wrote of many,” she continues, “Some of which came to me in their entirety, which I dictated and then typed out, and some that I worked laboriously picking apart each word to make the perfect poem. They are eclectic and honest and not trying to be anything other than what they are and for that reason I’m proud of them, especially because the spirit in which they were written was very authentic.”
According to Stereogum, Del Rey originally said that she was going to hand-bind copies of the book and deliver them to local bookstores and that she was going to sell the book for a dollar. As of July 12, Amazon has the hardcover book on sale for approximately $16.
It appears Del Rey is using the books publicity to bring awareness to the Navajo Water Project. In an Instagram post, Del Rey states “1 in 3 Navajo still don’t have a sink or a toilet. That means 1/3 of Navajo families haul water home every day. They pay 67 x more for the water they haul vs. piped water.”
The singer continues, “The Navajo Water Project has a fundraising target of $1,035,000 for 2020 to bring running water and solar power to 230 families. and we plan on fulfilling that target in the next 4 weeks to bring it up to their million dollar mark, and we’ll be traveling throughout New Mexico Arizona and Utah to say hello and make sure it gets done.”
According to Del Rey’s website, the following are the poems to be included in the audiobook. The additional 16 poems to be included in the hardcover and ebook do not appear to have been released yet.
Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass:
1 LA Who Am I to Love You
2 The Land of 1,000 Fires
3 Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass
4 Past the Bushes Cypress Thriving
5 Salamander
6 Never to Heaven
7 Sportcruiser
8 Tessa DiPietro
9 Quiet Waiter Blue Forever
10 What Happened When I Left You
11 Happy
12 My Bedroom Is a Sacred Place Now – There Are Children at the Foot of My Bed
13 Paradise Is Very Fragile
14 Bare Feet on Linoleum
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