Lana Del Rey has a new album coming. She has released the first track, called “Honeymoon,” which is also the name of the full album. No one has said whether she and James Franco talked about their marketing and release timing, but maybe they should have.
Franco has a book about Lana Del Rey hitting shelves in March of next year. It is called Flip-Side: Real and Imaginary Conversations with Lana Del Rey. The book is a combination of fiction and non-fiction elements, keeping with the writing philosophy of Franco’s co-writer and teacher, David Shields.
James Franco has caused a stir of rumors in the past about the nature of his relationship with Lana Del Rey. He posted a photo of the two on Instagram, joking that they had gotten married.
But he set that straight on Howard Stern’s show when the host asked him about it point blank.
“No, she’s a friend of mine…We’re friends,” Franco said of Lana Del Rey. Stern pushed further, asking if they had hooked up. “No,” Franco said. “On my life.”
The obvious question was, why not?
“I’ll tell you why, maybe it’s a boring answer. There’s a weird thing with creative types. Sometimes I love a person’s work and, like, I’m just so enamored with that and their persona in their work. But outside of that, it’s like, our dynamic is we’re just kind of friends, we get along so well. But all this sexual attraction is for the person and the work. I would have sex with her music.”
Franco’s answer to Stern is consistent with what he wrote about Lana Del Rey earlier this year in V Magazine.
“When I watch her stuff, when I listen to her stuff, I am reminded of everything I love about Los Angeles. I am sucked into a long gallery of Los Angeles cult figurines, and cult people, up all night like vampires and bikers.
“The only difference between Lana and me is her haunting voice. That carries everything. The voice is the central axle around which the spokes of everything else extend.
“Lana lives in her art, and when she comes down to earth for interviews, it gets messy, because she isn’t made for this earth. She is made to live in the world she creates. She is one who has been so disappointed by life, she had to create her own world. Just let her live in it.”
Apparently Franco has been planning writing a book about Lana Del Rey for a while, even before his essay about her in V Magazine. He hinted at the upcoming project then.
“I wanted to interview Lana for a book and she said, ‘Just write around me, it’s better if it’s not my own words. It’s almost better if you don’t get me exactly, but try.'”
It looks like that is exactly what he did.
I've literally never heard a lana del rey song except from summertime sadness and i just listened to the whole album and now I'm obsessed
— Helen (@gvcci_) July 26, 2015
