It strikes the listener that palm trees also aren't native to Southern California (except one variety) – instead, they were mostly planted for symbolic reasons, and to lure visitors and new residents. So the couplet sets up this inherent irony: calling SoCal the "land of the palms" (not a common phrase), and then declaring "I know I can't stay here." Plenty of other folks move to L.A., but many put down roots and stay (you know, like palm trees). It's a fascinating (and I think intentional) contradiction, in a song where Lana presents her own body as so deeply ingrained with the local landscape that it's a kind of living figuration of it (literally, "a map of L.A.") – but then she skips town at the end, because ppl got mad at her Instagram posts or whatever.
― Day 1 fan (morrisp), Tuesday, 13 June 2023 04:33 (eleven months ago) link