Lana Del Rey has performed at the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix, and played ‘White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter’ live for the first time.
The gig marked the first live performance from the singer in nearly a year, and saw her deliver a career-spanning set that featured ‘Young and Beautiful’, ‘Video Games’, ‘Summertime Sadness’ and more.
Like in her previous run of live shows, the Singapore set saw her design the stage with a small house with a porch, and perform alongside backing dancers while sitting on a swing for a good portion of the show.
Unlike all previous shows, however, this special Formula 1 slot saw her introduce ‘White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter’ to the setlist for the first time – the song which she dropped back in February as the latest teaser of her upcoming album ‘Stove’.
The ghostly, minimalist single was written by Del Rey alongside her husband, sister and brother-in-law, and she produced it alongside frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff. Check out how it sounds in a live setting below.
‘White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter’ was the third track to be shared from ‘Stove’, after Del Rey released ‘Henry, Come On’ and ‘Bluebird’ last year.
‘Stove’ was first announced in January 2024 under the name ‘Lasso’, with Del Rey initially planning to release it later that year. She described it as her first full-length foray into country music, having said in 2021 she’d recorded an entire cover album of country songs. She further hinted at a new country approach in 2023, when she performed covers of ‘Stand By Your Man’ and ‘Unchained Melody’, and released a cover of ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’.
In 2024, she told NME about the upcoming album and said that she wasn’t sure if to keep the country theme as the entire “music business has gone country”, and then went on to change the name of ‘Lasso’ to ‘The Right Person Will Stay’. She later swapped the name again,changing it to ‘Stove’.
March will mark three years since the release of Del Rey’s most recent album, 2023’s ‘Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd’, and Del Rey has told W that one of the songs on the album, ‘Stars Fell on Alabama’, was written about her husband, Louisiana alligator swamp tour guide Jeremy Dufrene.
There is still no official release date for the new record, although the singer has announced an untitled companion album to accompany the long-awaited record.
“So much has happened over the last four years, so much time waiting for things to come together and so much time wondering if it was ok that things were falling apart,” she wrote on Instagram. “Patience was the key, and in between the songs came new thoughts about old friends and new dreams and from the doubt of whether the tree I had been planting would grow – came new sprouts and so grew a new rose bush underneath the willow”.
She continued to say that ‘Stove’ was “a classic album” and “so lovely and intact as it was intended to be”. She then called both albums “two of my most beautiful pieces of work”, adding that her second album “sprouted from doubt, hopefulness, and the understanding that new beginnings truly mean starting completely fresh and over”.
