Lana Del Rey has released a brand new single titled ‘White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter’, taken from her forthcoming album ‘Stove’. You can stream it now.
Del Rey co wrote the track with her husband, her sister and her brother in law, and handled production alongside long time collaborator Jack Antonoff. The song unfolds as a sparse and haunting ballad, fusing Gothic tinged country with sweeping orchestral pop. Her dramatic sprechgesang style sits at the centre of what plays out as an offbeat love song.
“He’s my white feather hawk tail deer hunter / Before I met him, wore a bow over three summers,” she sings. “Now it’s a ribbon ’round my neck, and it’s cherry coloured / I’ve just been baking, waitin’ on a spirit hunter.”
When the chorus arrives, the mood briefly turns playful with Del Rey singing, “Whoopsie daisy, yoo hoo,” before she jokes about her lack of kitchen skills. “I imagine you do / Know how absolutely bad I’m with an oven”.
A self filmed music video is set to premiere tomorrow February 18. For now, the track is available across streaming services.
‘White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter’ marks the third preview from ‘Stove’, following last year’s releases ‘Henry, Come On’ and ‘Bluebird’. Earlier this month, Del Rey confirmed that ‘Stove’ is expected to arrive in roughly three months. At the same time, she said she felt “really happy” with the new single and noted that she and Antonoff had “finally found that magical chord”.
This March will mark three years since Del Rey last released a studio album, 2023’s ‘Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd’. NME awarded the record four stars, writing: “In many ways, she is a documentarian capturing angles that aren’t just bright and beautiful.
“Her ninth studio album is another testament to that approach. On ‘… Ocean Blvd’, she opens up on her life now, pondering the big questions and contemplating family, home and her future. The songs cross reference each other, looping back to earlier thoughts and feelings, making it feel like you’re with her in her day to day as she muses on these weighty topics.”
The project now known as ‘Stove’ was originally announced in January 2024 under the title ‘Lasso’, with Del Rey intending to release it later that year. It was described as her first full length step into country music, following years of hinting at a shift in that direction.
Back in 2021, she revealed that she had recorded a full album of country covers and described earlier songs such as 2011’s ‘Video Games’ as being “kind of country”. In 2023, she performed renditions of ‘Stand By Your Man’ and ‘Unchained Melody’, and also shared a cover of ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’.
In 2024, she told NME about the record’s direction, “When I gave Jack Antonoff his award for Best Producer Of The Year at the 2024 Grammys, I said, ‘Welcome Nashville to Hollywood and Hollywood, welcome to Nashville because the music business has gone, gone country.’ And it went silent, 5000 people, dead silent. Then the next week, we had three major artists announce big country albums. So where’s ‘Lasso’ going? I really have no idea now!”
Speaking later about the delay, she explained that “all the songs have been Americana and I want to wait to see what the musical atmosphere feels like”.
She later retitled ‘Lasso’ as ‘The Right Person Will Stay’, before confirming another name change to ‘Stove’ in August last year. She told W that the album had originally been due out last spring, but the timeline shifted after she decided to add six additional tracks.
Reflecting on those new songs, she said: “They were more autobiographical than I thought, and that took more time”. She also hinted that album 10 would lean strongly into country influences, explaining that “the majority of the album will have a country flair.”
In the same conversation, Del Rey revealed that one track on the album, ‘Stars Fell on Alabama’, was inspired by her husband, Louisiana alligator swamp tour guide Jeremy Dufrene.
“I open my show with that song,” she said. “Jeremy is the most impactful person in my life. He’s quiet in public, but around me he talks all the time.”
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