Ever since i fell out of love with you i fell back in love with me

"Violets for Roses" is a song by Lana Del Rey, written and produced by Del Rey and Drew Erickson, from her eighth studio album and seventh major-label studio album Blue Banisters.

There's something in the air
The girls are running 'round in summer dresses
With their masks off, and it makes me so happy
Larchmont Village smells like lilies of the valley
And the bookstore doors are opening
And it's finally happening

Ever since I fell out of love with you, I fell back in love with me
And, boy, does it feel sweet, like a summer breeze
Ever since I fell out of love with you, I fell back in love with the city
Like the Paramount sign sparkling, sparkling just for me

You made me trade my violets for roses
You tried to trade in my new truck for horses
Don't forget all of these things that you love are the same things I hate
The simple life, I chose this
You made me trade my violets for roses
You tried to take all the pink off my toes, and
God knows the only mistake that a man can make
Is tryna make a woman change and trade her violets for roses
Ah-la-ha, ah-ha
Trade her violets for roses
Ah-la-ha, ah-ha

There's something in the air
I hope it doesn't change, that it's for real
The beginning of something big happening
And by the mayor, the rallies in the streets have ceased
And still, the shadows haunt the avenue
The silence is deafening

Ever since I fell out of love with you, I fell back in love with the streets
And, God, does it feel sweet, like a summer breeze
Ever since I fell out of love with you I breakdance to the back beat
And, God, does it sound sweet, like it's playing just for me

You made me trade my violets for roses
You tried to trade in my new truck for horses
Don't forget all of these things that you love are the same things I hate
The simple life, I chose this
You made me trade my violets for roses
You tried to take all the pink off my toes, and
God knows the only mistake that a man can make Is trying to make a woman change and trade her violets for roses
Ah-la-ha, ah-ha
Trade her violets for roses
Ah-la-ha, ah-ha
Trade her violets for roses
(Ah-la-ha, ah-ha)

There's something in the air
The girls are running 'round in summer dresses
With their masks off, and it makes me so happy

There's something in the air
The girls are runnin' 'round in summer dresses
With their masks off, and it makes me so happy

Larchmont Village smells like lilies of the valley
And the bookstore doors are opening
And it's finally happening

Ever since I fell out of love with you, I fell back in love with me
And, boy, does it feel sweet
Like a summer breeze

Ever since I fell out of love with you, I fell back in love with the city
Like thе Paramount sign sparkling
Sparkling just for me

You made me tradе my violets for roses
You tried to trade in my new truck for Rollses
Don't forget all of these things that you love are the same things I hate
A simple life, I chose this

You made me trade my violets for roses
You tried to take all the pink off my toes, and
God knows, the only mistake that a man can make
Is tryna make a woman change and trade her violets for roses

Ah-la-ha, ah-ha
Trade her violets for roses
Ah-la-ha, ah-ha

There's something in the air
I hope it doesn't change, that it's for real
The beginning of something big happening

And by the Merthys Alleys
In the streets have ceased
And still, the shadows haunt the avenue
The silence is deafening

Ever since I fell out of love with you, I fell back in love with the streets
And, God, does it feel sweet
Like a summer breeze

Ever since I fell out of love with you, I breakdance to the backbeat
And, God, does it sound sweet
Like it's playing just for me

You made me trade my violets for roses
You tried to trade in my new truck for Rollses
Don't forget all of these things that you love are the same things I hate
A simple life, I chose this

You made me trade my violets for roses
You tried to take all the pink off my toes, and
God knows, the only mistake that a man can make
Is tryin' to make a woman change and trade her violets for roses

Ah-la-ha, ah-ha
Trade her violets for roses
Ah-la-ha, ah-ha
Trade her violets for roses
(Ah-la-ha, ah-ha)

There's something in the air
The girls are runnin' 'round in summer dresses
With their masks off, and it makes me so happy

This is slowly becoming a favorite track of mine so I wanted to a close reading of the lyrics. Hopefully, you enjoy and remember this is my interpretation of the song.

The first line of the song echoes her song “Change” where she begins the song with “There’s something in the wind, I can feel it blowin’ in”, whereas in “Change” the song is eerie and is anticipating change, be it good or bad, in “Violets for Roses” the song immediately indicates that the/a change has already occurred, and we see it in the next two lines. Masks off and running happy, references the freedom (from COVID also making this song hyper-contemporary), but perhaps this is not necessarily true in the real world, since COVID is still running wild, it again echoes the album’s tone of the freedom and joy found in family.

The second “stanza” or pre-chorus makes explicit another change that has occurred—a breakup. However, unlike most break-up songs, this is neither an angry declaration nor a sad one, rather a happy one. The freedom that comes with breaking-up with someone because you can reallocate the love back to yourself. Perhaps from a relationship so toxic that you forget who you are and what you like, highlighted by the first line, “ever since I fell out of love with you, I fell back in love with me.”

In the chorus, there is the infamous line, “you made me trade my violets for roses,” a line perhaps not popular with the community but one that is nonetheless metaphorically symbolic. “Roses” have been known in poetry to represent love since medieval prose poetry. Similarly, violets are no stranger to Lana Del Rey’s own poetry (see: Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass). While in the titular poem, Violet is a child of seven-years old, it could be argued that Violet is a personification of her own desires. The poem’s first stanza is a contemplation of everything she wants to do which is clashed with the presence of Violet in the second stanza:

and saw Violet
bent backwards over the grass
7 years old with dandelions grasped
tightly in her hands
arched like a bridge in a fallen handstand
grinning wildly like a madman
with the exuberance that only doing nothing can bring
waiting for the fireworks to begin

Her seeing Violet, carelessly enjoying her life, leads the poetess to let her own worries go:

and in that moment
i decided to do nothing about everything

forever.

Other than the clear intertextuality with her own oeuvre, Violets are also known to be compared to roses in the well-known poem:

Roses are red, violets are blue

Sugar is sweet, and so are you.

This poem, like Del Rey’s song, puts “violets” and “roses” in immediate contrast. The switching of placement in the chanteuse’s song, structurally emphasizes her identification with “violets” or her own desires, her own identity, with “roses” which represent love. Thus, “you made me trade my violets for roses,” is a confession, “you made me trade myself, my values, my joy for love.” A sentiment that harkens back to Del Rey’s third full-length album Honeymoon and the song “Terrance Loves You” where she confesses this pattern, “I lost myself, when I lost you”.

The rest of the chorus’ lyrics echo these sentiments. About a lover who made her sacrifice each aspect of her individuality (be it cars, toenail polish) in negotiation for love. The chorus ends with a declaration that any love that forces a woman to do this, is a doomed one.

The stanza that serves as the songs bridge repeats some of the lyrics from the first stanza of the song, but with this time a declaration of hope that this change is permanent. At first, the change being understood as this love for herself and the joy she finds in the everyday. While once again echoing perhaps the civil unrest that she first mentions in “Text Book” the opening track of Blue Banisters. Thus, with these final lines of this verse, the change she is mentioning is both the love she has for herself, but the change in society, macro and micro changes.

The final pre-chorus sees the singer re-embracing things that she used to love before she fell in love, “I fell back in love with the streets” and “I breakdance to the beat” and “God, does it sound sweet, like it’s playing just for me”. All sentiments reinforced by the final chorus and the outro which reaffirm the toxicity that love can have and that it is important to stay yourself and not to sacrifice what you love about yourself in order to be loved, in doing so you’ll find that that person forcing those sacrifices does not love you but loves controlling you. In the final lines of the outro, Lana is watching the girls again but seeing in them her own mask is now off, that toxic love, and it makes [her] so happy.