(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Fri 30 January 2026 22:00, UK
When Lana Del Rey wanted to collaborate with one of her idols, she was put through the wringer. Despite Del Rey being one of the biggest names in modern music, cementing her star status the second her debut dropped in 2012, she still wasn’t getting an easy ride.
The story goes like this: it was 2019, Lana Del Rey had just hit a whole new peak with Norman Fucking Rockwell!. The record was one of the most critically acclaimed releases of the year, and instantly became a fan favourite from her discography, as suddenly the sound seemed to switch up in a way they welcomed with completely open arms.
Suddenly, Del Rey seemed outright and confessional. “Goddamn, man child, you fucked me so good that I almost said, ‘I love you’,” she sings on the first line of the first track, opening up an album full of candid feelings and personal scenes clearly plucked from her life. For the first time, it seems like the suggestion of Lana Del Rey being a character was falling away, and what was left was the truth.
Part of that might have been inspired by Del Rey’s idols. In her eyes, both Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell are “like unicorns”; an artist like them only comes by once in a blue moon. So when she tried her hand at getting Baez to duet with them, Del Rey was more than happy jumping through hoops for what she saw as a true honour.
“In 2019, Lana, whom I’d heard about from my granddaughter, Jasmine, invited me to sing with her in Berkeley. I said, ‘Why? Your audience could be my great-grandchildren’,” Baez remembered to The New York Times. Del Rey, instantly humbled to even be talking to one of her heroes, replied simply, “They don’t deserve you”.
Baez wasn’t just going to say yes. Getting Del Rey to prove how serious she was, she sent her out on a challenge as the modern singer recalled, “She told me she lived an hour south of San Francisco and that if I could not only find her but also sing the song’s high harmonies on the spot, she’d do it.” All she knew was the house’s colour and a vague direction. Del Rey drove around for hours until she found it, sang the song, and proved herself, at which point Baez finally said, “OK, that’s good. I’ll sing with you.”
Other artists of Del Rey’s stature might have been sent off on a goose chase like that and thought ‘screw you’. But to her, it simply proved what she always knew and admired about Baez, calling the folk star, “the toughest woman I have ever met”.
To Del Rey, Baez is the ideal of a true powerhouse and the pinnacle of artistic strength. “I think the secret to real success is to make sure you’re always emotionally intact. I learned that from Joan,” she said as the two became friends after their duet. Del Rey would later write their friendship into her song ‘Dance Till We Die’, singing, “I’ve been coverin’ Joni, and I’m dancin’ with Joan,” as a homage to the nights they’ve spent salsa dancing.
Despite the closeness, though, Del Rey has never lost sight of the honour. “I recently said to her, ‘I just want you to know that I’m keenly aware that, in this lifetime or any other, I have no right to be standing shoulder to shoulder with you.’”
To which Baez candidly replied, “‘Oh, shut up.’”
Related Topics