Brooklyn Baby

Album: Ultraviolence (2014)
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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."

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