What does Born to Die mean?

Lana Del Rey: Born to Die Meaning

Album cover for Born to Die album cover

Song Released: 2011


Born to Die Lyrics

Feet don't fail me now
Take me to the finish line
All my heart, it breaks every step that I take
But I'm hoping that the gates,
They'll tell me that you're mine
Walking through the city streets
Is it by mistake or design?
I feel so alone...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    Jan 15th 2013 !⃝

    Personally, I feel the song is about a relationship where 2 people are in love. But no matter how much they love each other Lana (the girl) knows that it wont work out. They continue to try and make this relationship work out, and obviously she is in a bad relationship. I feel that she knows that its a bad relationship but is willing to do anything to try and make it work out because she loves him. Even though in the end she does die, I don't feel that is why the song is called Born to Die. She basically is fighting a losing battle and knows in the end the relationship isn't ever going to work out. (as in the romance is "Born to Die")

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    Jun 26th 2012 !⃝

    This girl and a guy are in love. They get together and get high and smoke a lot.(Let's go get high) They are typical careless teenage lovers. They fight a lot, but they love each other.But sometimes love is not enough and relationships crumple.(But sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough. I don't know why). One day, the girl and the guy meet after a long separation. So they get all exited and make out and smoke.(Come and take a walk on the wild side let me kiss you hard in the pouring rain. You like your girls insane.) But the girl just isn't feeling it, she's sort of disconnected. She does it anyways because she loves him. On the car ride home, the guy senses that the girl is upset about their relationship and how all they do is kiss and smoke. So, while he is driving he leans over and kisses her. But, while his eyes are off the road there is a terrible accident and the girl dies. ( You and I, we were born to die)

  3. 3TOP RATED

    #3 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Sep 23rd 2012 !⃝

    I think the girl is in love with a boy who has his apprehension about the relationship and the girl. But the girl tells him that life is a long journey and it's okay to have a little fun, to walk on the wild side at times, to get high. She tells him that sometimes love is not enough in this journey, but for them to keep on laughing and not crying is what matter cause they are in fact born to die.
    Born to die in the sense that in life the only inevitable truth is death. Nothing else matters cause everything has to meet its indispensable end.

  4. anonymous
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    Mar 15th 2018 !⃝

    It’s about love addiction and being addicted to someone who is totally emotionally unavailable.

  5. anonymous
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    Jun 13th 2017 !⃝

    I feel that this song starts off as if Lana thinks she's in the best relationship and the guy she's with is the love of her life. In the second verse when she says she was lost but now found, I think she's finally realizing that she has made a mistake in her relationship and is having second thoughts. In the ending of the song she keeps repeating 'we were born to die' so she is trying to say to the guy that she wants to breakup, but he is saying 'no' and keeps urging her on until finally they breakup (and it's the end of the video where the dude is holding the bloody body of Lana) .

  6. anonymous
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    Nov 7th 2016 !⃝

    I think she is singing about satanic sacrifice. She goes consciously to death. This is satanic song. I think the boy from the video acts some sort of devil. He controls her all the way till her sacrifice. He even creates slaughtering movement with his hand.

    While she is about to sacrifice herself she feels fear, she is not sure of what she is doing, asks for drugs, sex (she sings "fuck" instead of "kiss" on her concerts - very often in satanistic rituals), let's have a fun to conceal the fear, but in the end she dies. While she is reaching to her end she is obviously frightened. As I said she goes consciously to death.

    This can be seen in Sumertime sadness as well. Suicide.

  7. anonymous
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    Dec 28th 2015 !⃝

    This song is about a strong addiction that remains ironically intact. The harder LdR tries to detach herself from that addiction, the more she admits their common destiny in the face of an inevitable end. At the beginning, it looks like the last innings of a relationship where love is still intact but it just doesn't work any more. LdR asks for the ultimate sacrifice from her beloved one to end the relationship ("take me to the finish line"). She feels ready to set the final stage ("feet don't fail me now"), admitting how she contributed her fair share in making that relationship not work (selfishness "take what I could get", naivity "confused as a little child"). Having reached that point of no return, she asks him not make her sad and celebrate their special relationship one last time. Now comes the twist: When LdR sings that the "road is long" and "we carry on in the meantime", she accepts that this last stage of their relationship, her addiction, could become an eternal one. Ironically, the hope that the relationship will finally end ("born to die"), enables her to carry on.

  8. anonymous
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    Aug 21st 2014 !⃝

    It's about Jimmy Gnecco. They used to be together as a couple. Jimmy has an ex-wife who died from a car accident and she was "badass" (sorry for the expression). Jimmy was still in love with her. Lizzy was an awkward shy girl so why he didn't love her as much as his ex-wife. So Born to Die is a metaphor about that

  9. anonymous
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    May 30th 2014 !⃝

    I believe she outgrew the relationship and he refused to let her go threatening her life and such until he finally decided "if i can't have you nobody can" and tried to kill them both but only killed her allowing her to get away from him.

  10. anonymous
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    May 20th 2014 !⃝

    The song is about her saying the couple were meant to die together, she is leaving the old her with her boyfriend to move on....

  11. anonymous
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    Jul 21st 2013 !⃝

    who would have the time to make a song forwards and backwards? honestly im a HUGE fan of lana del rey i love her so much, and she didnt join illuminati.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  12. anonymous
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    May 31st 2013 !⃝

    the song is about her boyfriend who died in a car accident.
    not the Illuminati.

  13. anonymous
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    Apr 12th 2013 !⃝

    It's about her choosing to be enlightened and become part of the Illuminati's puppets to continue the New World Order agenda. If you watch the video, it reveals she left her old persona, dead, with her boyfriend, as the new her walks upon the pillars of knowledge, and in the very end she opens the tall doors, an illuminated light glows from it, and she walks into it. It is a sacrifice ritual .

  14. anonymous
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    Oct 6th 2012 !⃝

    I think this song is about realizing that you love someone so much that sometimes you must take everything away in life and get away to realize that in the end all you have is love. She knows he is the one for her because she has known it all along and knows the gates will tell her so. I believe this song is about how they tried hard to convince themselves that they weren't for each other and in the end they were born to die together

  15. anonymous
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    May 13th 2012 !⃝

    There are SO many subliminal messages and symbols in the video AND the song. Countless Illuminati references and on top of that if you listen hard enough to the song, there's a whispering voice saying, "Give me your soul". Shits creepy.

  16. anonymous
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    Mar 19th 2012 !⃝

    i take it in my opinion as she is an an unhealthy relationship, but she loves him. and they were well, "born to die" just a vague way of stating my opinion and how i received it.


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