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An essential guide to the locations that define Lana Del Rey
No one drops such casual references to the locations that define her like Lana Del Rey.
From the very beginning of her career, she has used geography as a central part of her writing process, her ties to places heavily ensconced in nostalgia and scene-setting; these places act as mise-en-scenes, as essential as stage design in a play.
Whether she’s referencing a city like Los Angeles or New York, or more specifically, a bar or a hotel, a prison or a shopping centre, Del Rey always has a certain location in mind when writing. In fact, her obsession with specific places has made them part of an unofficial tour across America and beyond, and the most diehard Lana fans out there have even made holidays out of it, traversing Los Angeles in search of the pieces that turned Elizabeth Woolridge Grant into Lana Del Rey.
The singer’s references to certain locations span everything from Blackpool in England (hardly very glamorous) to Monaco (that’s more like it), but the most common locations name-dropped by the singer can be found in California, with the singer long calling the West Coast home; she even has a song called ‘California’.
A map of every country, city, town, and landmark referenced in Del Rey’s extensive back catalogue of songs and poems would be too mammoth to accurately chronicle, so, rather, here are the most essential locations that define the singer’s oeuvre.
