Lana Del Rey’s 2019 album, Norman F-cking Rockwell!, was punctuated with a unique cover of Sublime’s “Doin' Time.” For the project’s follow-up, Chemtrails Over the Country Club, Lana once again delivers her own rendition of an old track. This time, she covers Joni Mitchell’s 1970 classic, “For Free,” with features from Weyes Blood and Zella Day.
The song itself juxtaposes Mitchell’s successful music career with that of a busker playing for spare change:
I was standin' on a noisy corner
Waitin' for the walkin' green
Across the street, he stood
And he played real good
On his clarinet for free
This fits perfectly into one of the central themes of Chemtrails Over the Country Club, which examines the price of fame and the unseen costs of Hollywood and the music industry with songs like “Dark But Just A Game” and “Wild At Heart.” On the latter track, she references the tragic fate of Princess Diana and the suffocating atmosphere of Los Angeles (both literally and figuratively) to reject stardom:
I left Calabasas, escaped all the ashes, ran into the dark
And it made me wild, wild, wild at heart
The cameras have flashes, they cause the car crashes
But I’m not a star
Lana first began shared a live performance of the cover 2019 while on tour supporting Norman F-cking Rockwell!
“For Free” appears on Joni Mitchell’s 1970 album, Ladies of the Canyon, a Platinum-selling record that is often viewed as the dividing line between her folk roots and her more commercially successful later work.
Lana brings her commentary full circle by ending the album with “For Free,” making her stance clear that music’s value transcends the industry’s celebrity culture.
Read all the lyrics to Lana Del Rey’s “For Free” on Genius now.
