LOS ANGELES — Lana Del Rey is back, and she's got Southern California on her mind once again.
The Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter dropped a new single on Wednesday, "Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd," the title track from her ninth studio album, which she announced is due March 10.
A mournful, slow-rolling piano ballad lacquered with glossy old-Hollywood strings, the song appears to have been inspired by "a long-forgotten Art Deco pedestrian tunnel," as the Los Angeles Times described it in 1992, that "lies beneath Ocean Boulevard at Pine Avenue" in Long Beach. According to the L.A. Times, the tunnel — which has a vaulted ceiling and runs 181 feet in length — was built in 1927 "so that beach-goers could avoid traffic-clogged streets."
