Lana Del Rey practices “automatic singing.” Using the improvisational songwriting technique, she lets her voice carry over accompaniments, not commandeering where her words or melodies take her, accepting all ideas she has in the moment and editing them later. Lately, her voice has led her home, back to memories of her childhood in Lake Placid, N.Y., and to ruminations on relationships with her family and the divergent paths they’ve taken.
That subject underpins her upcoming ninth album, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (out March 24). Del Rey, 37, says she hesitantly began to unpack this subject…