Thoughts on Chemtrails Over the Country Club

To me, Lana has always been about pining for youth, innocence, and about the decisions she made as a function of that youth which resulted in the loss of her innocence. On Chemtrails, this whole motif is condensed into a single song, both via that lyrics and the production of this song itself. In the lyrics:

Under the chemtrails over the country club
Wearing our jewels in the swimming pool
Me and my sister just playing it cool
Under the chemtrails over the country club
...
Baby, what's your sign?
My moon's in Leo, my Cancer is sun
You won't play, you're no fun
Well, I don't care what they think
Drag racing my little red sports car
I'm not unhinged or unhappy, I'm just wild

I hear this set up as Lana at the country club with someone significantly, perhaps inappropriately older than her. And, given that this song immediately follows White Dress which is explicitly about such a relationship, I think it's a reasonable assumption.

You won't play, you're no fun

For this line in particular, her sultry low register shifts back into a girlish high pitch, betraying that she has different motivations here than whoever she is with. A vignette that, in retrospect, seems telling:

I'm not unhinged or unhappy, I'm just wild

Later, in retrospect:

Meet you for coffee at the elementary schools
We laugh about nothing as the summer gets cool
It's beautiful how this deep normality settles down over me
I'm not bored or unhappy, I'm still so strange and wild

This verse serves as a nice transition. Lana, at the elementary school, is still holding on to some bit of youth, but ultimately the summer is getting cool. Summer here reads to me as a metaphor for her youth writ large, which is starting to cool with age. She is settling down, but she now has a new problem: She is bored, and now needs to convince herself that she's "still" wild where previously she was "just" wild.

It feels to me that lust for life, while being something she has always strived for, has always been out of reach, not quite fitting with the reality of her actions. When she is young, she is forced to act older than she is (no horoscopes) because the people she is spending time with are country-club-going older men. Now that she's older herself she wants genuine childlike experience, but it's too late. You can actually hear this out-of-reachness in the texture of the song: She harmonizes "I'm still so strange and wild" in the same girlish register as "you're no fun," but the girlishness falls away before reaching full shape in the chorus. By the time we get to the bridge, it has disappeared completely.

Washing my hair, doing the laundry
Late-night TV, I want you only
Like when we were kids under chemtrails and country clubs
It's never too late, baby, so don't give up
It's never too late, baby, so don't give up
Under the chemtrails over the country club, yeah

(you're born in December and I'm born in June)
You're born in December and I'm born in June

(under the chemtrails over the country club, yeah)

Reaching its peak here, the production really underscores the message. We get a huge swell of noise, as the mistakes of the past and realities of the present begin to blend. Fully settled into domestic life, she reaffirms that all she wants is "you," which superficially refers to an actual person, but to me sounds more like longing for some shape of wild abandon that, even in youth, she was always restrained from, since the people she was spending time with had already moved on from youth.

Recalling that summer here is the metaphor for her wild side, "You're born in December and I'm born in June" reaffirms that she has always been out of sync. While she is both at the threshold of summer, and has carried this with her throughout her life, the other person (her lover, or perhaps the reality of her actions) is borne deep in winter. They can never be in phase with each other, always oscillating out of sync. See also, "my cancer is sun and my leo is moon," reaffirming that the "you" in "December … and … June," and perhaps the second person throughout the song, is really some dual face of Lana herself.

Finally, the decision to use "chemtrails" instead of "contrails" seems deliberate, deciding to

1) invoke control from some outer power who is "above her" perhaps the very men at the country club, or perhaps the beat of society trending towards settled suburbia (see: "white picket chemtrails")

and

2) she again betrays her credulousness, similar to her star signs earlier in the songs. She doesn't question for a second if they even ARE chemtrails: That's just what they are called to her.

In the final verse, she repeats the title: That control "from above" is far away but visible, when she's a girl at the country club, but as she settles into laundry and late night TV, she realizes that the chemicals have indeed reached her, and exerted their force.