"Life is Beautiful" (also known as "Life is Still Beautiful") is a song by Lana Del Rey that was featured in the trailer for the 2015 movie The Age of Adaline.[1]
Background and writing
The song was written by Del Rey and produced and co-written by long-time collaborator Dan Heath in 2012 to be included the film The Age of Adaline.
“When you let everything go, you know, of course, all these little things come to you when you kind of aren’t expecting them to. I was writing a song that seemed really a little left-of-centre and too specific to be used for anything and then, like one of those things I was talking about with the movie, this guy was looking for something with a theme that was exactly what I had just written. It was called “Life is Still Beautiful”, so it was about a guy and his best friend, and one guy is just trying to get his best friend to come back to him because life is still beautiful.”
On July 31, 2012, Del Rey explained that the track had come to her after going back to writing music following polarising reviews and criticism during the release of Born to Die. She had written a song about someone convincing their friend to "come back to them" because "life is still beautiful", however felt the themes were too specific to be used in any of her own work.
Shortly after writing the song, Del Rey was contacted by a producer who had commissioned her to submit a track for The Age of Adaline with a theme that was similar to what she had just written. Ultimately, the song was never officially released, however was featured in various promotional videos for the film.[2]
Composition
"Life is Beautiful" is a cinematic ballad in the key of C♯ major with a slow tempo of approximately 63 beats per minute. The track features lush strings and layered vocal harmonies in the chorus.
Release
On April 21, 2015, a snippet of the track was released in a new trailer for the film. On September 14, another snippet was released in a promotional ad on Instagram, including the end of the song's chorus and the beginning of its bridge.[3] It was rumored to be included on Del Rey's 3rd full-length LP Honeymoon, since it wasn't featured on the soundtrack for The Age of Adaline, but the track has yet to be released. On June 2, 2016 a fan asked Del Rey about the song and she responded by saying "It was just for the movie".[4]
Cross-references
- The title, "life is beautiful", is prominently featured in "Black Beauty" as well as "Without You".
Lyrics
Don't be that way
Don't you pretend
You're not awake
Your soul's on fire
I don't believe
This is the end
Come on boy let's go
We can hit the road
We don't have to say
Where we're going
We can go anywhere
We can go anywhere
Right now
Life is still so beautiful