Don't Make Me Sad, Don't Make Me Cry

Or the ushering of the modern-day Sad Girl.

Born to Die by Lana Del Rey, 2012

Where would Sad Girl Nostalgia be without Lana Del Rey?

It’s the fall of 2011 and a then unknown singer named Lizzie Grant (who at that moment was introduced to the world as Lana Del Rey) released “Video Games,” a four and a half minute-long baroque pop single that was the spark that ignited Del Rey’s career.

I remember 2011 well: I was in my sophomore year of college and that fall marked the demise of my last relationship with the first guy I ever truly fell for. So you can imagine how much of an instant attraction I had to Lana Del Rey when “Video Games” first came out. I’m almost positive I posted that song to my Tumblr while crying in an American Apparel dress.

But that was just the beginning. In December of 2011, the second single from Del Rey, “Born to Die” was released. The music video depicts the now iconic imagery associated with her: American flag backdrop, a cigarette burning between her long, coffin-nailed fingers, and a flower crown adorning her head. What “Video Games” started, “Born to Die” all but cements: the ushering of the modern-day Sad Girl. “Don’t make me sad / don’t make me cry. / Sometimes love is not enough, / and the road gets tough, / I don’t know why,” she sings with a doe-eyed gaze, looking away from the camera with a naive uncertainty. A Sad Girl is born into the world.

A few weeks after Lana Del Rey’s infamous Saturday Night Live performance (spoiler alert: it wasn’t great), Born to Die was released on January 27, 2012. Hit songs included “Blue Jeans,” “National Anthem,” and “Summertime Sadness,” perhaps the best song about Seasonal Affective Disorder (Do I have to tell you the acronym?). But Lana, forever the controversial subject, truly out-sad herself on “Dark Paradise” ’s haunting line: “I wish I was dead.” This lead to her famously saying a similar statement in a 2014 interview with The Guardian, which she later rebuked. This of course coincided with the release of an even sadder album, Ultraviolence.

At its surface, Born to Die is a melancholy, love-me-or-I’ll-die glittery spectacle of Americana. Its use of ‘40s glitz and glamour darkened with somber waves of dismay makes it the ultimate introduction to the Sad Girl music genre. If the late 2010s gave us Sad Girl Indie, they have Lana to thank.