Lana Del Rey’s “White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter” is another question for the culture

Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Lana Del Rey contains Americana multitudes: a New York state-raised, Los Angeles-myth maker who recently settled down in Louisiana; a Tumblr poet laureate turned great American songwriter; a woman who put a hex on Donald Trump in 2017 and declared herself “not a feminist” a few years later. Her new single, “White feather hawk tail deer hunter” is a love song and a horror film, scored by eerie strings and fraught arpeggios. The latest single from her tenth studio album, Stove, is whispered with such tenderness that any lingering unease suffocates within Del Rey’s rose-colored love bubble. Like much of Del Rey’s work, “White feather” toes an uncomfortable line between adoration and submission. The poetically wrought ode to husband-and-alligator-tour-guide Jeremy Dufrene has a push-pull dynamic. Sometimes, their union feels deliciously rebellious and counter-culture like it’s them and their domestic bliss against the world: “Likes to keep me cool in the hot breeze summer / Likes to push me on this green John Deere mower.” At other times, Del Rey is just glorifying the toils of being a wife: “I know it’s strange to see me cooking for my husband” and “I love my daddy, of
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