This week I thought I’d pick the Lana Del Rey song, Video Games, off the pending pile but, after some background listening, I’ve realised that just about any Lana Del Rey song will do. That’s the thing with this singer; all her songs are gorgeous but they all sound much the same. So, for my Track of the Week, I’ve plumped for a recent single with a rather nice video instead. It’s called Love.

According to the ‘Net Love was originally going to be called Young And In Love which, surely, would have been a better title. Have you tried searching a music catalogue for songs by putting “love” into the search box? Actually, you might be surprised to know that the top hit on iTunes and Spotify right now is this Lana Del Rey song. Although I don’t suppose that will be the case in a year’s time.

Love was released on 18th February ahead of the new album which is due sometime later this year. Musically it falls into the ‘baroque pop’ category: a lush backing track behind a soulful singer. In overall feel Love reminds me of Don’t Stop Believin’, the Journey song that tells of ‘a singer in a smoky room’. And that seems appropriate because ‘smoky’ describes Lana’s rich low voice really well.

Love‘s lyrics hark back to 50’s and 60’s America when the Dukes of Hazzard would go cruising in a beat up Dodge Charger getting into all sorts of scrapes and having the time of their lives. There’s a whole new generation of young bucks (and does) out there today but they’re still just cruising aimlessly and looking for fun. The present day Dukes are listening to sixties vintage songs on the car stereo, too, but now those songs are beamed down from satellites. That, for Lana Del Rey, is all rather confusing but in the end she concludes that it doesn’t matter because

… its enough to be young and in love.

Lana Del Rey

I may be a Crotchety Old Man now but I can still remember being young and in love. And that should be enough for anyone. In fact, I’d settle for just being young again. (I’ll pause here for everybody to say a sympathetic ‘Ah’.) If you like sixties music and are fortunate to be young and in love Lana Del Rey’s current single will surely resonate with you. If you remember times like that Love will take you back to those happy times. And if you haven’t found love yet you can still enjoy the Marilyn Monroe of singing voices and that song called, simply, Love.