Brooklyn Baby

Lana Del Rey’s “Brooklyn Baby” (Ultraviolence, 2014) is a satirical nod to Brooklyn’s hipster subculture. Produced by Dan Auerbach, it perfectly captures the “California-noir” and psychedelic rock vibe of that era.

There is a bittersweet story behind the track: Lana had planned to record it with Lou Reed, but he sadly passed away in October 2013 on the day she arrived in New York to work with him. You can hear a tribute to him in the song’s finale; the deep harmony provided by Seth Kauffman was meant to channel Reed’s iconic baritone.

Because the song is built on basic open chords, it works effortlessly as a solo fingerstyle piece. I actually posted a version of this back in 2015, but I wanted to revisit it with an updated arrangement and better production. Rather than a repetitive six-minute cover, I’ve focused on creating a concise, eloquent instrumental that touches on all the song’s melodic shifts.

You might also like to play…
(more of my Lana Del Rey arrangements)

Salvatore | fingerstyle guitar + TAB

Video Games | fingerstyle guitar + TAB

Summertime Sadness | fingerstyle guitar + TAB

How to play Brooklyn Baby | fingerstyle guitar

The guitar tab for Brooklyn Baby is beautifully written across 3 pages. I recommend this piece for beginner guitar players and up. Enjoy! The guitar TAB is available below:

My song structure looks like this:

Intro, Verse, Chorus

Bridge, Chorus (page 2).

Withing the intro, you’ll see 7 dots (. . . . . . .) trailing the interval on the 1st and 2nd string. That indicates to strum or pluck the interval 7x.

[guitar tab] **Lana Del Rey: Brooklyn Baby | fingerstyle guitar

This arrangement is played in standard tuning.