*Names have been changed.
A week before I started college, I broke up with my boyfriend of 2 years – who conveniently was also my first real love. All of a sudden, my life felt like it had been flipped completely on its head. I had broke up with Jesse*, moved to a new country, and started university all in the span of a week.
As this was my first “real” breakup, it was incredibly hard trying to move on. I tried everything! Sappy love songs, check! Angry love songs?! Check! I even tried the whole Elle Woods chocolate and movies! But alas, no results.
Until one night, I was sat in my best friend Annie’s car, who coincidentally was going through the same exact thing, when Lorde’s “Hard Feelings/Loveless” began to play. I had always been a fan of Lorde’s music, especially her new album “Melodrama,” but until Jesse and I broke up, I hadn’t been able to relate to it the way she intended for people to. In that moment, Annie and I realized we were both crying, because the song had been able to describe what we had gone through in a way that we couldn’t.
It was then I realized how tremendously monumental “Melodrama” was for young girls going through a breakup. It takes its listeners through the process of a breakup, from the moment it happens, to the sadness, the anger, and the self realizations. Lorde had managed to put every emotion, every moment, and every single piece of loving and losing someone, into words.
After my first time listening through the complete album, I could feel myself beginning to move forward. Listening to “The Louvre” reminded me of the incredible happiness my relationship with Jesse brought me, while “Liability” helped me understand my self-struggle of realizing that I am enough and I am whole on my own after the breakup.
And “Supercut” helped me understand the importance of treasuring the good times I had with Jesse, but knowing that it was okay to move forward without completely letting go. And “Green Light” was that everything song that really expressed the struggle of loving someone so much you never want to have to let them go, no matter the circumstances.
Though of course, “Hard Feelings/Loveless” is the one that hits you like a train, because it’s about that moment right after the breakup, where you don’t wanna get up, because you know that when you do, that means it’s really over – it’s done.
Lorde took a piece of her life that was so personal, and poured it out into this album, Melodrama. She used it as a mechanism to not only help herself move forward, but also helped every girl who had gone through their first (or second, or third) heartbreak. Now, whenever I’m feeling down and lonely, I know where to turn.