Lana Del Rey has written a new song called “Looking for America” in response to the recent spree of mass shootings in the U.S.
Initially, the singer shared a two-minute snippet of herself singing the song on her Instagram page. She performed the track live in the studio with producer Jack Antonoff (check it out here).
The post quickly spread among her 13.5 million followers. Del Rey writes that she’s not a politician, but back-to-back shootings affected her profoundly.
In the post, Del Rey also says she came back early from Montecito and asked Jack Antonoff to come to the studio. She said she had a song she needed to write.
“Now I know I’m not a politician and I’m not trying to be so excuse me for having an opinion — but in light of all of the mass shootings and the back to back shootings in the last couple of days which really affected me on a cellular level I just wanted to post this video that our engineer Laura took 20 minutes ago. I hope you like it.”
The snippet is clearly an unfinished version of the song, but the vocals and accompanying guitar music are haunting. In the song, Del Rey sings about looking for her own version of America, “one without the gun, where the flag can freely fly, no bombs in the sky.”
The two weekend mass shootings in El Paso, TX, and Dayton, OH claimed 31 lives. Both incidents appear to be inspired by hateful rhetoric against immigrants, and the FBI is currently investigating these attacks as possible domestic terrorism.
Del Rey’s sixth album, Norman Fucking Rockwell, will release on August 30th. The revealed tracklist for that album did not include “Looking for America,” so it’s unclear if we’ll hear a finished version of the song.
Del Rey will tour in support of her new album, which kicks off on September 21st in New York.