Plumped-Up Lips


Lana Del Rey, a woman with pale skin and cartoonishly puffy lips, resting her head against a wall and looking into the distance

I linked to a clip of a genius song parody called “Hunger Games” a while back. Not
only did it mash up the concept of the book and movie of that name with Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games”; it did the job almost too well. The voice and images were eerily spot-on, putting that song back on heavy rotation in my head — along with Foster the People’s “Pumped-Up Kicks”, for the simple if admittedly odd reason that I’d already imagined rewriting its lyrics to skewer Ms. Del Rey (born Elizabeth Woolrich Grant). Like...


Why do you run, do you run
I’m comin’ hon
Don’t you want a kiss from these plumped-up lips
Why do you run, do you run
Can’t you stand my pucker
Don’t you want a kiss from these plumped-up lips


Ms. Del Rey, whose mouth pillows make her look like the slightly freakish love child
of Ann-Margaret and Angelina Jolie, was introduced to me by Saturday Night Live the week that she rather infamously performed as musical guest. She had zero stage presence and sounded terrible, but the backlash against her was so strong that I felt bad for her — until I saw her sing “Video Game” on The Late Show, actually listened to the lyrics, got the full gist of her preciously spaced-out schtick, and was nauseated by it all. Then I felt even worse discovering that she wasn’t the product of a pop-music Svengali as one might suspect but had been a key participant in her own packaging.

Sometimes I just don’t get it; then again, I suppose I don’t really have to.



Related: Furter Is Coming Mid-March Miscellany Parodies Found

8 comments:

  1. Let's ask Gwyneth, our lifetime's greatest life-coach and philosopher what she thinks, shall we?

    "When you go to Paris and your concierge sends you to some restaurant because they get a kickback, it's like, 'No. Where should I really be? Where is the great bar with organic wine? Where do I get a bikini wax in Paris?'"

    So, true, so very, very true. Thank you The Gwyneth! *kisses foot of the Gwyneth which The Gwyneth then has promptly bathed in Dead Sea mud, crushed pearls and defaulted mortgages*


    ;D

    ReplyDelete

  2. Every time you disagree with a post of mine, especially it's a slam on someone or something you like, you should reply with advice from Gwyneth.

    Unless having explicit permission from me makes it less fun...

    ReplyDelete

  3. PS: What's French for "concierge"?

    ReplyDelete

  4. The post's been up less than a day and I've had at least two visitors from Google search hits for {lana del rey duck lips}.

    ReplyDelete
  5. As a Bad Seed, I can tell you that having permission makes everything less fun.

    Give it a bit of time, I'm sure the "Gwyneth/ feasting on ashes/ why so evil" and the "I hate Gwyneth" searches will pop up.

    In fact, I'll make sure of it...

    >:)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Here, you might like this.

    http://www.celebitchy.com/184212/where_the_wild_things_are_author_maurice_sendak_i_hate_gwyneth_paltrow/

    ReplyDelete
  7. ...Ms. Del Rey (born Elizabeth Woolrich Grant).

    Man, is that ever stupid... it's almost as bad as naming your kid, say, Apple.

    I went to an outdoor event two days after this post and the song that played as I made my entrance was "Pumped-Up Kicks" and I thought to myself"That goddamn Blam! He certainly does have his little birds all about, doesn't he?"

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  8. I went to an outdoor event two days after this post

    Congratulations!

    ReplyDelete