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Fresh off the release of Bleacher's highly anticipated third album Take The Sadness Out of Saturday Night, Jack Antonoff is looking back on another major project. He served as a writer and producer on Lana Del Rey's 2019 Norman F***ing Rockwell album. While sitting down for an appearance on Mix with the Masters, Antonoff revealed how one song from the album came to be.
Antonoff highlights Del Rey's 'The Greatest' as his favorite track off Norman F***ing Rockwell. He describes the foundation of the song as a “kind of an English-sounding progression,” which he finds “pretty regal."
Once he and Del Rey established the foundation of 'The Greatest,' Antonoff added 12-string guitars to the track. Next, he brought in piano to help the song "really come to life."
Antonoff revealed the inspiration for the instrumental choices made on the song was that they wanted 'The Greatest' to sound like "a death march to the end of culture.“ That idea is certainly reflected in the lyrics, Antonoff explained. “Hence her lyrics, ‘The culture is lit and I had a ball / If this is it I’m signing off," he said. "The whole thing is just this lament of a time gone. So it felt really interesting to have it be almost like a funeral procession.”
While chatting with NME about his new album recently, Antonoff also recalled working on Norrman F**king Rockwell. “What I love about working with Lana is that there’s so much more humor in their music than I think people understand," he shared.
Del Rey and Antonoff enjoyed working together so much, they teamed up once again for Bleachers' latest outing. Del Rey co-wrote the track ‘Don’t Go Dark’ onTake The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night and jumped in on backing vocals on ‘Secret Life.'