"Say Yes To Heaven" by Lana Del Rey // 7" picture disc vinyl 🤍

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"Give peace a chance, let the fear you have fall away"

"Say Yes To Heaven" by Lana Del Rey was originally written in the 2013 recording sessions for her second album, Ultraviolence. It didn't end up making the final cut for the album, as the record ended up going in a different sonic direction, but a few different versions of the track ended up leaking through the years, starting as early as 2016. Ten years after it was first recorded, the song finally got an official release in early 2023 following the leaked demo going viral on TikTok. The song has had a cult following for many years, so it was surprising that it was actually officially released. There are many other demos and unreleased songs that have leaked online over the past decade, which have also garnered unexpected virality in the years that followed, but this is a rare instance of her officially putting out a song in its original form. 

It is such a wistfully romantic song, one that reminds me a lot of the direction she would later go in with Lust For Life. I love the dreamy, atmospheric production by Rick Nowels, who she worked with as her main collaborator on her first four albums. The 2023 version pretty much stays true to the original 2013 recording, other than minor refining of her vocals and the quality of the production. I assume she re-recorded parts of "Say Yes To Heaven" ahead of its official release, but little has been said by Lana about this song. 

 "If you dance, I'll dance, and if you don't, I'll dance anyway, give peace a chance, let the fear you have fall away" is one of my favorite lyrics from the song. Lyrically it is simple and sweet and her vocals sound ethereal. "Say yes to Heaven, say yes to me" she sings in the chorus, and later repeats, "I've got my mind on you" throughout the song. 

Some of her leaked demos often have gotten reworked into new songs on later albums than they were originally intended for. Blue Banisters and Norman Fucking Rockwell! both included quite a few songs that were leaked several years prior to their official release, often with slightly different lyrics and reworked production. Many of her songs that ended up leaking seem to be from around 2013-2015, which are from either the Ultraviolence or Honeymoon writing sessions, which was obviously an abundantly creative time for her in her artistry. 

A few months after "Say Yes To Heaven" was released, this song also got an unexpected physical vinyl release, which was limited edition and exclusive to her webstore. Lana has been killing it with her vinyl releases over the past year and I hope to see it continue! I absolutely love this 7" vinyl picture disc, which features a never-before-seen Ultraviolence photoshoot outtake by Neil Krung. The black and white photo is the same on both sides and is so beautiful. I heard it is going to be a part of an upcoming photography book he is publishing soon, which I am looking forward to! He has worked with Lana for many years and brought her music to life in such a stunning way through the years with her various album covers and photoshoots.

The B side of this vinyl release features the Ultraviolence deep cut called "Black Beauty", which is one of my favorites from that album. It compliments "Say Yes To Heaven" in such a beautiful way, I was happy to see that this was included. I'm also glad the B side of the vinyl wasn't the sped-up version of the song that went viral on TikTok, that is such a strange music trend and I always think that is so pointless when those are included on 7" singles.

"I paint the sky black, you said if you could have your way, you'd make it nighttime all today, so it'd suit the mood with your soul" she sings in the opening chorus. It is quite melancholic, but the lyrics are so stunning and poetic. Much like "Say Yes To Heaven", she is desperately pleading with her star-crossed lover that is enveloped in darkness to finally let the light in. "You have no room for light, love is lost on you, I keep my lips red to seem like cherries in the spring, darling, you can't let everything seem so dark blue", she sings. One of my favorite lyrics that she has ever written is "life is beautiful, but you don't have a clue". "Black Beauty" has a much darker undertone than the light and airy "Say Yes To Heaven", but they share many of the same themes within the music, making it the perfect pair for this vinyl. 

"Say Yes To Heaven" is so different than a lot of the other songs that ended up making it onto Ultraviolence and it gives an interesting look into what direction that album ultimately could have gone in. As a fan, I do love hearing the process and origins of how many of the songs came to be and the journey it takes from the early drafts to the final product. I'm sure it is annoying and invasive from her standpoint to have so much music leaked when you never intended for anyone to hear it in that form. It's been happening to her for years too, dating back to the early days of her career soon after Born To Die was released, where hundreds of files were leaked from music she was working on. "To be honest, what really happened was, three years ago somebody remotely accessed my hard drive, so even songs I’ve never emailed to myself were accessed. There are hundreds of them," she told Radio.com in 2013 following a massive music leak. I assume this is where "Yes To Heaven" came from, which the song was known as at the time. 

It has been a topic of conversation around fans of Lana's music for a long time if she will end up officially releasing any of her other popular leaked tracks. As much as I would love that, I don't foresee it happening any time soon. At the current stage of her career, it doesn't seem that Lana is too caught up in the idea of re-releasing old work as much as she is with wanting to progress her musical journey and continually put out new material. If she was, then she probably would have officially done so by now, especially with a lot of her early Lizzie Grant music (fingers crossed it still happens one day, though!) Her vault of unreleased music is so deep, songs like "Serial Killer", "Queen of Disaster" and others are absolute gems that have found a new life on TikTok over the past couple of years. With the new audience her music has found on that platform recently, especially with a lot of her unreleased music for some reason, I think it is admirable for her to have enough artistic integrity to not sell out her vision for a few months of viral success. 

I have so much of Lana Del Rey's music in my record collection, it there is any other album or vinyl release you'd like to see me talk about let me know in the comment section below! Throughout this year, I have plans of going through all of Lana Del Rey's discography and reviewing the albums I haven't written about yet. I hope you come back and check it out! She is one of my favorite artists ever and has such an immaculate discography, which I can't wait to talk about in depth in my upcoming reviews. In the meantime, I'd love for you to read my reviews of Chemtrails Over The Country Club, Blue Banisters, and Did You Know That There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. 🤍

Thanks for reading! 

-Melissa ♡


All photos are my own! 



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