Set to release next year on March 10, alternative singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey announced her upcoming album Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd, on December 7 with the release of the title track. This will be her ninth studio album, and includes collaborations featuring Jon Batiste, Father John Misty, and Jack Antonoff’s Bleachers. Antonoff has previously produced two of Del Rey’s albums, Norman F***ing Rockwell! and Chemtrails over the Country Club.

The title track is a slow, melancholic, piano-backed song with lyrics radiating themes of loneliness, insecurity, and mainly, the fear of being forgotten. Del Rey describes the Jergins Tunnel in Long Beach, California, which was closed to the public in 1967. It was appreciated during its time, but now that over fifty years have passed since then, many don’t know about it. 

Del Rey uses the tunnel as a metaphor and compares its history to her own life, wishing to be loved and remembered, and wishing to live a meaningful life.

Walkersville High School senior, Audrey Johnston, is expecting good, different things from Del Rey’s upcoming album. Johnston felt underwhelmed after listening to the title track, but after listening for the second time, she shared her opinion.

“I liked Lana’s new song a lot more upon re-listening to it. The title did feel a little ridiculous, but I really liked the lyrics in the song, though. I haven’t listened to Lana Del Rey’s more recent stuff such as Blue Banisters, so I don’t really have much to fairly compare it to. I liked the chorus the most,” Johnston explains.

In October, Del Rey posted a series of videos on her Instagram story in which she detailed her experience of having her car broken into in Los Angeles, being robbed of a backpack containing a laptop, three cameras and several hard drives. The laptop contained her unfinished new album and a book that she was working on, causing her to remotely wipe the contents of the computer, losing the book in the process as it was not backed up.

“Please don’t listen to the music if you hear it because it’s not coming out yet,” Del Rey said, asking her fans not to listen to leaks from the upcoming project. There have been other previous instances of Del Rey’s music being leaked ahead of its release date, and it’s best to wait until the album is complete and finalized.

With the anticipation of Lana Del Rey’s new album in the air, there are now multiple color variants of Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd on vinyl, available for pre-order from Del Rey’s website and other retailers, some having store-exclusive alternative album covers.