Lightning and the Mariner: Lana Del Rey, Carl Jung, and the Integration of Duality in “Mariners Apartment Complex”

There’s a reason I decided on a favourite song for the first time in my life last year. I was going through one of the hardest times of my life, and yet I found that I was beginning the process the infamous Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Jung named ‘Individuation’ and ‘Integration’. During that time, I found myself resonating with Lana’s iconic 2019 Album ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell!’ in a much more profound way than I usually would. On this album is a song named ‘Mariners Apartment Complex’. This song specifically held me in a way that no other song ever had. It inspired me so much and kept me feeling authentic to myself when I needed it most. If I ever had the chance to meet Carl Jung in any kind of afterlife that could possibly exist, the first thing I would do is explain to him why this song is a perfect demonstration of his psychological theories.

On the surface, Lana has often been boxed into a single, stagnant category by the public. Society expects her to simply be the ‘sad girl’ or the ‘shallow damsel’, a fragile candle in the wind, mainly based on her most popularised previous works that tend to be heavily melancholic. She had even released a song named ‘Sad Girl’ on her darker, more ‘tortured’ album known as ‘Ultraviolence’ back in 2014, and many people (especially teenage girls - I was a week away from my 15th birthday when this album was released…) ran with this categorisation of Lana. What easier way to understand her deeper artistic expressions than to fit her into the neat sad girl box? However, this song ‘Mariners Apartment Complex’ released 5 years later in 2019 completely shatters that commonly held illusion. It perfectly portrays her ability to integrate and hold all contradictory facets of herself. She demonstrates that she is neither simply the sad girl nor the shallow damsel, but rather someone who can be both lightning and thunder, and the mariner. She is not a fragile candle in the wind; she is the one navigating the storm.

We can see this immediately in the opening lyrics: "You took my sadness out of context / At the Mariners Apartment Complex / I ain't no candle in the wind / I'm the board, the lightning, the thunder." She is directly calling out her partners previous (and in my view, societies too) projection placed upon her. She refuses to be reduced to a single emotion.

From a Jungian perspective, this song is a masterclass in individuation and the withdrawal of projections. When we fall in love with an image of someone, we are often projecting our own unconscious desires onto them. In ‘Mariners Apartment Complex’, Lana is actively, maturely and confidently rejecting a projection placed upon her. They expected her to be a fragile, shallow damsel, but she is forcing them to see her as a whole, multifaceted human being.

This is where her strength derives from. She is not strong because she is unfeeling; she is strong because of her own ability to navigate the depths of her internal ocean. As she sings, "You lose your way, just take my hand / You're lost at sea, then I'll command your boat to me again." Furthermore, she uses this depth to guide others in finding their own authenticity and way of being, without needing to fix them. She holds space for their duality just as she demands they hold space for hers.

This is a deeply radical act, especially when viewed through the lens of societal expectations. Society often correlates these qualities, strength, depth, and the ability to navigate the dark, with traditional traits of masculinity rather than human ones. (Hence the lyrics “I’m your man”) Simultaneously, society expects women to express themselves in stagnant and singularly limiting categories. Women are not expected to be wildly multifaceted and deeply complex; they are expected to be easily defined as many of us have experienced. Lana portrays this experience so profoundly throughout this song.

Being an amalgamation of archetypes, feelings, and thoughts is her entire point and purpose, not the reason for her melancholic expressions. Those melancholic expressions are simply one facet of her complex personality, rather than the entire label that defines her. She makes this explicit in the lyrics: "Think about it, the darkness, the deepness / All the things that make me who I am."

As a Type 4 (the Individualist) Enneagram myself (apparently, Lana is likely a 4 too!) I recognise this instinct intimately. Type 4s are often highly attuned to melancholy and deeply romantic, but we frequently struggle with feeling fundamentally flawed or misunderstood by a world that wants us to be simple and palatable. We often use very particular artistic expressions (often melancholic) as both a protective shield against vulnerability and a door into it. I myself am a 4w5 (meaning I also share traits with the 5 Enneagram, often described as ‘The Investigator’). While a 4 belongs to a group of enneagram numbers named ‘The Heart Triad’, a 5 belongs to a group named ‘The Head Triad’. As such, one of our true, authentic goals is often integration. This is because 4s tend to be very polarising with a deep need for authenticity (especially 4w5s, since 4s and 5s belong to different triads, meaning the way they process the world is fundamentally different. 4w5s and 5w4s are literally human representations of the head vs. heart). Therefore, what we truly desire is to be seen in our entirety.

Lana achieves this integration within this song by holding all of her parts together by herself. She proves that being an amalgamation of archetypes and feelings is not a weakness, but the ultimate human strength. She is both the mariner guiding the ship and the lightning striking the sea. She is not simply a candle in the wind; she is the entire storm, and she is finally at peace with it. "I'm your man” she repeats at the end of the song, a phrase traditionally belonging to the masculine archetype, yet she, a woman, boldly and calmly claims it for herself. She integrates the soft yet strong protector, the romantic, and the storm all at once with a metaphorical declaration of self acceptance.

This is what makes ‘Mariners Apartment Complex’ my favourite song of all time.