Lana Del Rey is going country. The alt-pop star is set to perform at Stagecoach 2025 on April 25, closing out the festival's first day on the Palomino Stage with a "very special country set."
The singer's Stagecoach appearance will further anticipation for her upcoming 10th studio album — a country-tinged project she has promised will arrive sometime later this year. Del Rey initially teased that the LP was titled Lasso, then announced it would be called The Right Person Will Stay and released on May 21. But on April 11, she took to social media to share that she'd once again decided to change the LP's title and pushed back its release date. "You know it's not going to come on time, right?" she joked. "Should I even tell you that the name changed again?"
Whatever the studio set's final title ends up being, it's already been preceded by its gentle lead single "Henry, Come On" as well as the lush, harmonica-laden "Bluebird," both of which show off Del Rey's natural gift for country-style storytelling and delicate songcraft.
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Despite being categorized as a melancholic, alternative pop star for the majority of her career, Del Rey has insisted for years that the country stylings she's showcasing with her latest music have always been embedded in the DNA of her songwriting — dating all the way back to the early days of 2012's Born to Die and Paradise.
"I went back and listened to 'Ride' and 'Video Games' and thought, you know, they're kind of country," she said in a 2021 cover story for MOJO. "Maybe the way 'Video Games' got remastered, they're pop — but there's something Americana about it, for sure."
Since then, Del Rey has dabbled increasingly in country music, from covering classics of the genre to working with budding country artists. She's even made a couple of surprise appearances at Stagecoach in years past, perhaps foreshadowing her own headlining set at the 2025 iteration.
Ahead of Del Rey's anticipated Stagecoach return, revisit five of the key collaborations and covers that have helped the singer prepare for her biggest countrified moment yet.
While Del Rey is billing her upcoming 10th album as her first country-inspired record, the singer has dabbled in the genre on past studio sets like 2021's Chemtrails Over the Country Club.
Take "Breaking Up Slowly," her duet with outlaw country artist Nikki Lane: the slow-burning dirge opens with ghostly pedal steel as Lane laments, "Are these my good years or do I have none?/ Are there really good years for everyone?/ I don't wanna live with a life of regret/ I don't wanna end up like Tammy Wynette" in her Southern drawl.
The song keeps its country flourishes subtly haunting as Del Rey joins in for the rest of the track, which the close friends have performed multiple times in recent years — including during Del Rey's first surprise appearance at Stagecoach in 2022 as well as her headlining set at Newport Folk Festival 2023.
The Chemtrails album cut is the pair's sole studio release together, but it may not be their last. In 2022, Del Rey hopped up on stage during Lane's performance at Sam's Town Paint in Austin, Tex., where they performed "Breaking Up Slowly," Lane's "Look Away," and an as-yet-unreleased second collab titled "Prettiest Girl in Country Music" — the latter of which they sang with a then-rising Sierra Ferrell.
And it's clear their friendship runs deep, as Lane was also on hand for the Honeymoon singer's September 2024 nuptials to husband Jeremy Dufrene.
After referencing Tammy Wynette in song in 2021, Del Rey further paid tribute to the late country icon in some of her 2023 live shows. The singer occasionally covered Wynette's "Stand By Your Man" while touring in support of her GRAMMY-nominated ninth album, Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd.
The first time the superstar performed the 1968 hit was at an August 2023 stop in Rogers, Ark. With her hair teased into a bouffant and clad a '60s-style babydoll dress, Del Rey looked like she'd stepped out of a bygone era — perhaps an homage to the '60s/'70s star — as she warbled, "Sometimes it's hard to be a woman/ Givin' all your love to just one man."
From there, Wynette's signature ode to unflinching loyalty became a standard addition to Del Rey's setlist, with the singer performing it everywhere from Outside Lands to Robert's Western World in Nashville. And though she hasn't dusted "Stand By Your Man" off since the Ocean Blvd tour's U.S. leg wrapped in October 2023, the song offers hints at the sonic direction Del Rey may take on her own country album.
To close out 2023, Del Rey added another classic by a country icon to her repertoire — this time, a surprise studio cover of John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads."
Channeling her finest West Virginia mountain mama, the singer remained faithful to the spirit of Denver's iconic 1971 recording — which was officially inducted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame in 1998 — with her adaptation. Her soft croons were backed by muted piano before she was eventually joined by a gospel choir for the final chorus.
Notably, Del Rey had already referenced Denver earlier in the year on "The Grants," the opening track off the pensively titled Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. As the song begins, a chorus sets the stage for the star, singing, "My pastor told me, 'When you leave, all you take/ Is your memories'/ And I'm gonna take mine of you with me/ I'm gonna take mine of you with me/ Yeah, I'm gonna take mine of you with me/ Like 'Rocky Mountain High'/ The way John Denver sings."
On June 20, 2024, Del Rey played a truly unforgettable concert at Boston's historic Fenway Park. Taking place the night before her 39th birthday, the star billed the event — which was delayed for two hours due to wild lightning storms — as "One Very Special Show" and put together a career-spanning setlist that included everything from early hits like "Video Games," "Ride" and "Born to Die" to special appearances by Steven Sanchez and Quavo.
The singer's first surprise came early in the evening, however, when she invited viral Walmart yodeler-turned-rising Nashville sensation Mason Ramsey onto the stage to perform a duet of "Blue Over You" — the lead single to his 2024 debut full-length, I'll See You In My Dreams.
As the sold-out crowd lit up the iconic stadium with a sea of phone lights, the two delivered the chorus together before Del Rey gave Ramsey the floor to deliver the song's love-stricken hook.
"I got chills singing it on stage," Ramsey later reflected about the magical moment during an interview on "The Zach Sang Show." "I was so nervous," the 18-year-old added. "'Cause that's a huge moment, you don't want to screw up. It was one of those things where you would've had to have been there to experience the actual feeling for yourself. 'Cause, like, the feeling there versus what you see on TikTok or Instagram or whatever…It's just so much different."
One year before her own headlining stint on the Palomino Stage, Del Rey joined genre-bending country star Paul Cauthen on the same stage at Stagecoach 2024. Closing out the "Cocaine Country Dancing" singer's set, the pair delivered a surprise duet of the 1955 standard "Unchained Melody."
The musical chemistry between the two singers appeared effortless, harmonizing on the song's famous lyrics as they sang, "Oh my love, my darling/ I've hungered for your touch/ A long, lonely time/ And time goes by so slowly/ And time can do so much/ Are you still mine?"
Del Rey's impromptu appearance wasn't the first time she had performed the timeless tune, which originally earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song in 1956 as well as a GRAMMY nod for the Righteous Brothers in 1991. In 2023, the chanteuse channeled Elvis Presley's 1977 performance in Rapid City, S.D., to cover the track for NBC's holiday special "Christmas at Graceland," which was filmed at The King's iconic estate in Memphis, Tenn., and hosted by his granddaughter, Riley Keough.
Whether Del Rey will deliver another rendition of "Unchained Melody" during her special Stagecoach set, the singer has certainly shown that country music is part of who she is — and she's eager to continue proving it.