A second snippet featuring the first verse rather than the chorus of the song was posted on the same platform on June 26. On June 16, 2015, a short video clip featuring a snippet of the track was released onto Instagram. Billboard said the song was "grander and more ambitious than anything the singer-songwriter has released thus far", describing it as "epic". The Independent praised the song, calling it "melancholic and beautiful". The Verge described the song as "six minutes of meandering bliss" and praised the "sweeping strings and stuttering snares" that "float through the background of the song", but also identified that, "like much of Lana Del Rey's work, the core of its appeal is in her voice." TIME called the song "characteristically broody" and "cinematic", and suggested it "leans closer to the sounds of her breakthrough LP Born to Die than the material she cooked up with the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach". NME called the track "cinematic" and "emotionally thrilling" before describing it as "perhaps her most heart-stopping ballad yet". Upon release, the song was met with critical acclaim. After the last chorus Del Rey makes use of scatting, a popular jazz vocal device. In the bridge of the song muted military drums are introduced and return again for the outro along with block piano chords. The track relies heavily on the use of swooping strings and layered vocal harmonies. "Honeymoon" is a cinematic ballad running at 5 minutes 50 seconds in length in the key of F minor with no fixed tempo. In an another Instagram post, on August 14, she stated that the song is "the most beautiful one" on the album.
On May 7, the lyrics to the track were found in the tour book for the Endless Summer Tour, although no lyrics from the rest of the album were featured.ĭel Rey posted a lyric video for the song on her personal YouTube page on July 14, 2015, and the next day Del Rey expanded on the writing of "'Honeymoon" in an Instagram post saying it is "where the record begins and end" and that "it encapsulates all of the things that come naturally to ".