Two of Lana Del Rey's favorite poets are beat writer Allen Ginsberg and transcendentalist pre-beat Walt Whitman. For the latter, she went as far as to say that "Whitman is my daddy" in the song "Body Electric," named after the bearded 19th century legend's sprawling, sensual poem "I Sing the Body Electric." When she recited Whitman's poem "Song of Myself" for a French fashion magazine, the line "I beat and pound for the dead" sounded exactly like one of her own.

Lana Del Rey is not a rapper, but hip-hop has influenced her singing, her style, and her video co-stars (A$AP Rocky plays JFK to her Jackie in her "National Anthem" video). But it's Eminem's honest approach that had the most profound effect on her. "He really changed my life because I didn't know music could be intelligent," she told an Italian website. "He was talking about his own life and he wasn't just rhyming over music for rhyme's sake…That made me think I could talk about the way things were instead of just making stupid music."

Google the phrase "gangsta Nancy Sinatra," and all search results lead back to Lana. By the time the press came calling, Del Rey was "a little embarrassed" by the comparison. ("That was supposed to be a joke," she told British GQ). Favoring a low voice and massive musical backdrops did echo Sinatra's stylish run in the swinging Sixties, so it's easy to see why the tag stuck. For her part, the daughter of Frank Sinatra, who’s best known for her no-nonsense hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'," is an O.G. for setting her own brash career agenda. (She shared one of the first interracial kisses on TV with Sammy Davis, Jr., and posed for Playboy in her 50s.) Last year, Del Rey and ex-boyfriend Barrie-James O’Neill covered "Summer Wine," a duet made famous by Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood in 1967. 

Brooding and nostalgia are the ropes that bind Lana Del Rey to poetic songwriter Leonard Cohen. That and a willingness to describe sex acts performed on unmade beds – as they are in Cohen’s 1974 classic "Chelsea Hotel No. 2." Covered by Del Rey last year, the slow, impossibly sad song refers to intimate details of his romance with Janis Joplin at the New York artists' hangout. Her quavering voice wraps around it, and latches tightly onto the lyric "You were famous, your heart was a legend." The Chelsea won't take new tenants anymore, but Del Rey still makes herself at home.

Squint your ears a little while listening to the morose "Pretty When You Cry," and before you know it, you'll be on a dark desert highway with cool wind in your hair. Lana Del Rey has said she listens to the Eagles' "Hotel California" while getting ready for photo shoots.

Credited with shaping Lana Del Rey's current album with a Nashville band, Dan Auerbach has netted recent production credits with musicians both retro and retro-minded – Dr. John, Ray LaMontagne, Reigning Sound and more. The Black Keys frontman, who met Del Rey through a mutual friend in New York, has proven himself a master of gritty ambiance in his own band, and infused Ultraviolence with most of its guitar licks, especially on the tempo-churns of "West Coast." "She's a true eccentric, you know, extremely talented," the 2013 Grammy winner for Producer of the Year told Rolling Stone. "She looks at this whole thing as this great big art project."

Before Lana Del Rey occupied the entire spectrum of Lizzy Grant's artistry there was her May Jailer phase. The folk side of Grant resulted in an Edie Brickell-ish acoustic album called Sirens that's still lurking on the web. Del Rey has said in interviews that ex-Fleet Foxes singer-songwriter Father John Misty reminds her of her roots. Typical Misty-cisms are often more drug-addled gonzo folk explorations than anything Grant has released under any name, but there's a shared desire for freedom in both of their work. They eventually toured together earlier this year.