2012Released
4:41

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Video Games. By Songfacts®.

Lana Del Rey (born Elizabeth Grant) is an American-born, London-based indie-pop singer-songwriter. Del Rey describes her sound as "gangsta Nancy Sinatra." Moving to New York City from her hometown of Lake Placid, she recorded an album under the name Lizzy Grant that never got released. Tied to her contract, Grant was unable to sign another deal for three years. After this initial disappointment, she adopted her stage name of Lana Del Rey after management advised her that a name reminiscent of Hollywood glamour would better suit the kind of music that she was making. Though a number of sources claim name references the Hollywood actress Lana Turner and the Del Rey motor car, the singer told Q this is not the case. She said: "I don't even know what movies Lana Turner has been in. 'Lana' was just because its beautiful, 'Del Rey' the same thing."

"Video Games" is Del Rey's debut single, which was released on October 10, 2011 by Interscope Records in the US, and Stranger Records in the UK. She wrote the song with songwriter Justin Parker after he played her the piano chords that would become its backbone. The song is about a relationship, in which she expresses her frustration at making all the running. She explained to Complex Magazine: "When you're an introvert like me and you've been lonely for a while, and then you find someone who understands you, you become really attached to them. It's a real release."

Del Rey's lyrics were inspired by two broken relationships in her past. "The verse was about the way things were with one person, and the chorus was the way that I wished things had really been with another person, who I thought about for a long time," she told Socialstereotype.com, breaking into an acapella of the song. "'Swinging in the backyard, pull up in your fast car, whistling my name'. That was what happened, you know? He'd come home and I'd see him. But then the chorus, 'Heaven is a place on earth with you, tell me all the things you wanna do' wasn't like that. That was the way that I wished it was – the melody sounds so compelling and heavenly because I wanted it to be that way. The verse is more matter-of-fact because that's how it was. It's a mix of memories and the way I wished it could have been. Just because things happened a certain way doesn't mean that that's the way that they are. It really is what you choose to think about. Bad things happen every day but you're not going to be any happier thinking about them. So I don't think about them. I don't have that luxury any more. Some people say that 'Video Games' stops them in their tracks; it's that kind of song. It's just really sad."

Top Listeners

Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of Video Games.
F♯Key
MinorMode
4/4Time Signature
122BPM

Album

The album Video Games is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released Video Games.
Urban
© 2012 Lana Del Rey, under exclusive license to Universal Music Domestic Rock/Urban, a division of Universal Music GmbH
℗ 2012 Lana Del Rey, under exclusive license to Universal Music Domestic Rock/Urban, a division of Universal Music GmbH

See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.

Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.

5.8MArtists
73.5MSongs
12.3MAlbums
6.3KGenres
2.5MLabels
493KPlaylists