A&W by Lana Del Rey is one of my favorite songs by her, even though it’s incredibly dark and heartbreaking.

Here’s a portion of my lyrical analysis of the masterpiece she created.

In A&W, Lana sings, “Did you know a singer can still be looking like a side piece at 33?”

When I heard this line, it made me do the math on who Lana was romantically involved with when she was 33 years old. She was dating G-Eazy in 2017 when she was 32, and then she started dating Sean Larkin in 2019 when she was 34. So when she was 33 years old, it was a sweet spot right between her relationships with G-Eazy and Sean Larkin.

Interestingly enough, there’s a chance Lana felt like a glorified side piece while dealing with G-Eazy, since he rebounded past their relationship with Halsey so rapidly.

He and Lana were seen spending time together for months starting in April 2017, and then suddenly his collaboration with Halsey hit the radio in the summer of 2017.

The fact that he moved on with such quickness could have possibly left her feeling like a side piece he abandoned and turned his back on without much thought. As a reminder, though, we don’t exactly know why Lana and G-Eazy broke up, and there’s a chance she was the one who ended things.

Then there’s her relationship with Sean, where we know he treated her like a side piece because she has live lyrics to her song Chemtrails Over the Country Club during live performances, revealing that they were still very much involved when he married his current wife, Carrie Cadeux.

Lana added live lyrics to Chemtrails Over the Country Club in 2023, singing, “He was born in December and I’m born in June. He was born in December and he got married while we were still together. Sometimes I wonder what his wife would think if she knew that I didn’t know anything. He got married while we were in couples therapy together.”

For more context, Lana was born on June 21, 1985, and Sean was born on December 7, 1973. According to those lyrics, Sean treated Lana like a side piece, and she dives into that concept even further when she sings, “Put the shower on while he calls me. Slips out the back door to talk to me. I’m invisible, look how you hold me.”

The man she’s singing about had to call her privately, turning the sound of the shower on to keep their call a secret from the main woman in his life. She describes him sneaking out the back door to talk to her because she’s nothing more than a side piece to him.

And then she describes herself as feeling invisible to him as he holds her. Being a side piece, being a mistress, being the woman who isn’t his first choice sounds incredibly heartbreaking and lonely. It goes hand-in-hand with the title of the song, American whore.

What are your thoughts on this song by Lana? Is A&W one your faves by her as of now? Let us know in the comment section below.