What does Ultraviolence mean?

Lana Del Rey: Ultraviolence Meaning

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Album cover for Ultraviolence album cover

Song Released: 2014


Ultraviolence Lyrics

He used to call me DN
That stood for deadly nightshade
Cause I was filled with poison
But blessed with beauty and rage
Jim told me that
He hit me and it felt like a kiss
Jim brought me back
Reminded me of when we were kids

This is...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    Dec 13th 2014 !⃝

    I was told this song is based on jim Morrison and his relationship with Pamela Courson. Lana is a fan of jim Morrison I'm sure most of you know. Jim and Pamela's realationship was very controversial. The meet very young when Pamela was 18 and "raised her up". Jim was notoriously a heavy drinker and could be very violent. He also wrote poetry and could have described her as "Nightshade" or "Poison Ivy" in his poems for the way she treated men to get back at him. Lamas lyrics describe their realationship perfectly especially when she says "We could go back to New York, loving you was really hard, We could go back to Woodstock, where they don't know who we are"

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    Jun 15th 2014 !⃝

    It's probably about "Jim" abusing her, but she can't leave him because she loves him so much. When she says "You're my cult leader", she means she'll follow everything he says, she won't disobey him.

  3. anonymous
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    Oct 19th 2020 !⃝

    1-it’s actually “jim told me that he hit me and it felt like a kiss” when most people think it’s “he hit me and it felt like a kiss” so jim TOLD LANA that hitting her, to him felt like a kiss,

    2-it is not HER lyric, she sampled it
    2b- as it it is not her lyric why would she use it? i assume she (sadly) relates to it i know this because in an interview she once said she was in a cult thing? lana told Grazia that the song had its foundations in truth. "I used to be a member of an underground sect which was reigned by a guru," she said. "He surrounded himself with young girls and he had this insane charisma I couldn't resist as well. So I was in this, I'll call it sect, because I was longing for love and security."


    Continuing, she added: "But then I found out that this guru wasn't a good but a bad person. He thought that he had to break people first before he could build them up again. At the end I left the sect."
    now if we look into it a bit more, in the same song she says “you’re my cult leader” so this obviously means that the cult leader who turned out to be a bad guy is jim

  4. anonymous
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    Jun 2nd 2018 !⃝

    She said she was part of some underground cult where this guy was charming but abusive and had tons of women surrounding him and she was one of them. Straight from an interview. This song was written about that experience.

  5. Belle
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    Mar 28th 2018 !⃝

    To me this song is about a lot of things, but mostly about a relationship that is obviously violent, though I see it as being rather complex. It sounds like the woman here is in a submissive role but I don't think she'd consider herself a victim. If the Jim in the song is Dominant, she is in one of those unfortunate situations where the Dom and Sub think abuse and violence is acceptable, or even a given, but in truth a Dom/Sub relationship is way more complicated than that. But I know both men and women who, being hit, feel loved. It's sad and not healthy but it's true, and I love that the songwriters don't sanitise that: the girl loves him regardless, maybe even because, he "raised her up" with violence. Love is complicated, far more so than popular culture entertains without casting aspersions.

  6. anonymous
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    May 28th 2016 !⃝

    Maybe, just maybe, the song describes an abusive relationship. When shes is hit it feels like a kiss, right? So, remember being young, and you liked a girl, you may have pulled on her hair, teased her, maybe even hit her (or vice versa). Kind of like the Helga and Arnold relation. Being hit feels like a kiss and it takes her back to when they were kids. My guess is that Jim is the whiskey/bourbon. That both causes the violence and helps her to cope with it.

  7. Caroline
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    Mar 29th 2016 !⃝

    Honestly this sounds like she was talking about drugs. Jim is the stuff she uses (meth or whatever). "Jim told me that, he hit me and it felt like a kiss, jim brought me back, reminded me of when we were kids" here she talks about the feelings drugs brings to her, memories. "I can hear sirens, I can hear violins" riot caused by an overdose and ambulances coming for her aid. "I could have died right there, cause Jim was right beside me" again, experiencing an overdose.

  8. anonymous
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    Sep 9th 2014 !⃝

    Jim Jones maybe?

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  9. anonymous
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    Aug 28th 2014 !⃝

    I think it's about her boyfriend who's violent but she doesn't want to leave him because sometimes he's nice. She loves him so much she doesn't care if she get's beaten for nothing. Eventually he beats her to death.

  10. anonymous
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    Aug 21st 2014 !⃝

    maybe it's about alcohol.. Jim Beam. (I was filled with poison) poison = alcohol.
    maybe it's about Jimmy Gnecco her ex-boyfriend?. mayyybe he was violent with her idk
    or maybe it's about Jim Morrisson but eh idk why she would say about him "he used to call me DN" and "He hit me and it felt like a kiss" it's not like she personally knew him

  11. anonymous
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    Aug 15th 2014 !⃝

    I think Jim is in the process of beating her to death and these are all the things she's thinking of as he s doing it. Im not sure'violins' is what she's hearing. It may be 'violence' she hears, as well as sirens. Police, ambulance coming to her aid.

  12. anonymous
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    Aug 15th 2014 !⃝

    I think he beat her to death. (I can hear sirens)

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  13. anonymous
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    Jul 15th 2014 !⃝

    This is about mk beta programing.. They are being brain washed in thinking certain things by the illuminate reffering to when they strapped someone to a chair and made them watch ultra(extremely ( violent things

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  14. anonymous
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    Jul 10th 2014 !⃝

    Shows that "jim" isn't always abusive because sometimes he can be so lovley.
    But when he is he's destructible.
    But she loves him none the less

  15. anonymous
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    Jul 1st 2014 !⃝

    In my opinion, Jim is Jim Morrison!


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