Brooklyn Baby

Album: Ultraviolence (2014)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This moody, reverb-heavy love song finds Del Rey exalting her older musician beau as well as poking fun at Brooklyn hipsters. She wrote the song with her actual boyfriend, singer Barrie-James O'Neill. The pair began dating shortly after the release of "Video Games."

    Former frontman of Scottish rock band Kassidy, Barrie-James O'Neill left the band in 2013 and adopted the stage name "Nightmare Boy" as a solo artist.
  • The song was originally meant to be a collaboration with legendary rocker Lou Reed, who was born in Brooklyn. Tragically Reed passed away the same day they were scheduled to have a studio meeting. "I took the red eye, touched down at 7am…and two minutes later he died," Del Rey told The Guardian.
  • After crooning throughout the song about her love for her hip musician boyfriend, Del Rey ends it with the couplet: "Yeah, my boyfriend's really cool. But he's not as cool as me. " Asked by Fader magazine about the lyrics, the singer replied: "That wasn't even supposed to be there, and I kind of sang it with a smile, and Dan (Auberbach, producer) was looking at me and laughing. I'm just kind of fu--ing around."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

16 Songs With a Heartbeat

16 Songs With a HeartbeatSong Writing

We've heard of artists putting their hearts into their music, but some take it literally.

Yoko Ono

Yoko OnoSongwriter Interviews

At 80 years old, Yoko has 10 #1 Dance hits. She discusses some of her songs and explains what inspired John Lennon's return to music in 1980.

Alice Cooper

Alice CooperFact or Fiction

How well do you know this shock-rock harbinger who's been publicly executed hundreds of times?

Harold Brown of War

Harold Brown of WarSongwriter Interviews

A founding member of the band War, Harold gives a first-person account of one of the most important periods in music history.

Bob Daisley

Bob DaisleySongwriter Interviews

Bob was the bass player and lyricist for the first two Ozzy Osbourne albums. Here's how he wrote songs like "Crazy Train" and "Mr. Crowley" with Ozzy and Randy Rhoads.

Ian Anderson: "The delight in making music is that you don't have a formula"

Ian Anderson: "The delight in making music is that you don't have a formula"Songwriter Interviews

Ian talks about his 3 or 4 blatant attempts to write a pop song, and also the ones he most connected with, including "Locomotive Breath."