Arcadia is a city in Los Angeles County, California, about 13 miles (21 km) northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Lana Del Rey moved from her native state, New York, to LA in 2012. During this piano ballad, she sings of her love for her adopted city.
In Arcadia, Arcadia
All roads that lead to you as integral to me as arteries
That get the blood flowing straight to the heart of me
But, Del Rey is a small-town girl from Lake Placid, New York, and she's going to have to move on.
I'm not from the land of the palms, so I know I can't stay here
I'm not native, but
My curves, San Gabriel all day
Why does she want to get away? Critics have trashed Del Rey throughout her successful music career with accusations of white fragility, flaying her for lyrics they feel glamorize abuse.
They built me up 300 feet tall just to tear me down
So I'm leavin' with nothing but laughter, and this town
Arcadia
Lana wants to start again somewhere else calmer and simpler.
Del Rey previously sang of the need to escape LA in the
Chemtrails Over The Country Club track "
Let Me Love You Like A Woman." There, she asks her lover to come with her to live a simple life away from the big city.
Before Del Rey released "Arcadia" as a single on September 8, 2021, she wrote on her Instagram: "listen to it like you listened to 'Video Games.'"
Lana Del Rey's breakthrough single "
Video Games" was inspired by two broken relationships in her past. The implication is that "Arcadia" is a breakup song with an industry that has criticized and ridiculed her persona. The once-promised land of Arcadia is a metaphor for her music career going sour.
"Arcadia" is the fourth single from Blue Banisters. A day before its release, Del Rey shared an additional snippet, mentioning that she's never felt the need to explain her story, but the album does tell it. "I guess you could say this album is about what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now," she wrote on Instagram. "If you're interested go back and listen to the first three songs I put out earlier. They chronicle the beginning. This song hits somewhere in the middle and by the time the record drops you will hear where we're at today."
When Del Rey previewed the new album in May 2021, she released three songs from the record: the title track, "Text Book" and "Wildflower Wildfire."
Del Rey gave further clues about the background to the song and the rest of the album at the same time, writing: "As much as the ongoing criticism has been trying, it at least has pushed me to explore my own family tree, to dig deep, and to continue to exhibit the fact that God only cares about how I move through the world. And for all of the skepticism about feigning fragility and unreasonable explanations of not showing general accountability - I must say I've enjoyed moving through the world beautifully - as a woman with grace and dignity."
Del Rey wrote and produced the song with Drew Erickson. His other credits include playing on Weyes Blood's
Titanic Rising album and arranging the strings on The Killers collaboration with Weyes Blood, "
My God."
Del Rey directed the video, which starts with her performing the song standing next to windows in a nondescript room. Halfway through, it switches to the singer-songwriter lying down on a starry galaxy backdrop as different California scenes are superimposed on her body. The clip ends with a trap remix of "The Trio" by Ennio Morricone that's not officially part of "Arcadia."
