A timeline of Lana Del Rey’s chaotic country album rollout

Name changes, a new sound, and a Morgan Wallen exposé. All the headlines from a chaotic album rollout.

Lana Del Rey has put her finger in the proverbial air and looked across culture and politics, and decided it’s time for her to make a country album. Of course, this being Lana Del Rey, her cowboy era has been full of drama from the get-go. Her 10th studio album currently doesn’t have a release date or even a confirmed title, though she has assured fans that it is on the way. While the world waits for the album to drop, Lana has released a couple of excellent singles and performed at country festival Stagecoach, immersing herself in the culture by jumping on stage with Jelly Roll and spilling the (sweet) tea about a hook-up with Morgan Wallen.

Read on for the full lowdown on Lana’s next project.

The earliest mutterings

Lana embracing country music is not an entirely recent thing. Back in 2021, the same year she released Blue Banisters, she revealed that she had recorded an album of country covers inspired by two of her earliest hits. “I went back and listened to ‘Ride’ and ‘Video Games’ and thought, you know they’re kind of country,” she told Mojo. “Maybe the way ‘Video Games’ got remastered, they’re pop—but there’s something Americana about it for sure.”

Two years later, in 2023, she began performing country classics including “Stand By Your Man” while touring that year’s Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. That December she released her version of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver.

Confirmation she’s “going country”

During a speech at the NMPA Songwriter Awards on January 31, 2024, Lana honored her regular collaborator Jack Antonoff and confirmed that they were “going country” for her next project. She told reporters that the album would be titled Lasso and would come out in September of that year. ”If you can’t already tell by our award winners and our performers, the music business is going country. We’re going country. It’s happening,” she said at the NMPA event. “That’s why Jack has followed me to Muscle Shoals, Nashville, Mississippi, over the last four years.”

She then followed up with a Vogue interview in which she made it clear this wasn’t the pivot in sound it may appear. “All my albums are somewhat rooted in Americana, unless it’s an album like Honeymoon which has a jazz flair, so I don’t think it will be a heavy departure,” she told the publication. “If anything, it will just be a little lighter lyrically, and more pointed in a classic country, American, or Southern Gothic production — which again, so many of my songs already are.”

The official announcement (and a new name)

On November 25, 2024, at the same time as announcing a U.K. and Ireland tour, Lana confirmed that her upcoming album had been renamed The Right Person Will Stay and that it would be released on May 21, 2025 — though that news would be short lived.

“Henry, come on”

On April 11, “Henry, come on” was released. It makes good on the promise to lean into country aesthetics with lines including, “Hang his hat up on the wall, Tell him that his cowgirl is gone.” The song was co-written with Nashville’s Luke Laird and produced by Drew Erickson.

“I’m really happy it’s out there for you to hear. I don’t want to say it’s my favorite song, but I do really think it’s the song that the album hinges on,” she said of the song during an IG live. “I want you to hear the demo with the dry vocals, so you can sort of see how it started.” During that same live, Lana said she had changed the album name again and confirmed that it would no longer be released in May.

“Bluebird”

The following week, on April 18, “Bluebird” was released. The song has an unlikely origin story, as revealed in another IG live.

“I started humming this chorus to myself, with the words and the melody, a long time ago when I had been seeing someone for a very long time — and we hadn’t seen each other for a while, and he called,” Lana told her followers. “And he asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. I was kind of excited, but I didn’t think it was a very good idea.”

“All of a sudden a bird smacked in the double-pane window doors of my bedroom,” she added. “I was shocked, and I opened the little door and I saw this little, I think it was a little sparrow, little swallow, right there, and I just was so emotional — because you know when you just know that something is meant for you? Like sometimes I feel like nature has its own way of communicating with you, especially in extremely severe situations — not in a sacrificial way, just in a way just for you to know.”

She continued, “I just wanted to hold it. I was so hoping that it would be OK. I remember before I could even think, I just sat, knelt there, and I just sang, ‘Little bird, little bird, fly away for both of us.’ I was just kind of tearing up for myself and for the bird.”

Stagecoach

Lana generally headlines festivals and stadiums but accepted a lower spot on the bill at this year’s Stagecoach, essentially the country music Coachella. What she lacked in topline status, she made up for with a headline-grabbing set in which she played “Henry, come on” for the first time and debuted three more new songs: “Husband of Mine,” “Quiet in the South,” and “57.5.” The latter, she explained, was named after her monthly Spotify listeners (add a million to the number) and includes an indiscreet line about kissing Morgan Wallen.

“This is the last time I’m ever going to say this line,” Del Rey said before singing: “I kissed Morgan Wallen / I guess kissing me kind of went to his head. If you want my secret to success,” she continued. “I suggest don’t go ATVing with him when you’re out west.”

Following her own performance, Lana joined Jelly Roll during his Stagecoach headline set to fill in for Lainey Wilson on “Save Me.”