It’s a massive day to be a Lorde stan. On May 29, Lorde dropped a new single, “Man of the Year,” from her upcoming album Virgin, as well as an accompanying music video. And, if you’re wondering what the new track (and video) is about, then you better be ready to get a bit deep ā because this new era is art.
Now, before we get into the nitty-gritty of the lyrics and video, let’s give a bit of context first. Recently, Lorde has been opening up about her journey with “gender broadening” and fluidity. On April 24,Ā Lorde announced her upcoming album Virgin, writing, āI WAS TRYING TO MAKE A DOCUMENT THAT REFLECTED MY FEMININITY: RAW, PRIMAL, INNOCENT, ELEGANT, OPENHEARTED, SPIRITUAL, MASC.ā Shortly after, in a Document Journal interview published on May 1, Lorde said that her new album came to be after a “period of great turbulence” in her life, which had her face her relationship with her body and gender expression head-on. Then, at the 2025 Met Gala, Lorde spoke about gender expression again on the red carpet with Emma Chamberlain, saying, “I feel like a man and a woman, you know?ā
Lorde’s recent conversations around gender set the tone for both the lyrics and music video for “Man of the Year,” which is a vulnerable exploration of bodily autonomy, expression, and fluidity. And if you were looking for a deep dive, you’ve come to the right place.
What is Lorde’s “Man of the Year” about?
In true Lorde fashion, she gets vulnerable right away, singing, “Glidinā through on my bike, glidinā through / Like new from my recent ego death.” Given what we know about her journey thus far, Lorde’s ārecent ego deathā could refer to her realizations about gender after stopping hormonal birth control (which she opened up about in a May Rolling Stone interview).
Lorde then goes on to sing, “You met me at a really strange time in my life / Take my knife andāIācutāthe cord / My babeācan’t believe I’veābecome someone else / Someone more like myself.” Not only do these verses include a Fight Club reference, but they’re also a metaphor for the gender binary. The imagery of the cord can be seen as both an umbilical cord during a birth, or as a metaphorical cord between genders ā which Lorde feels must be cut to achieve true fluidity. These lyrics also tie back to Lorde’s Rolling Stone interview, where she said, āI had cut some sort of cord between myself and this regulated femininity. It sounds crazy, but I felt that all of a sudden, I was off the map of femininity. And I totally believed that that allowed things to open up.ā
In the chorus, Lorde sings, “Who’s gon’ love me like this? / Oh-oh, oh, who could give me lightness? / Let it flow down to me / Love me like this / Now I’m broken open?” These lyrics illustrate Lorde’s fear of not being accepted, especially in a relationship, during an era of vulnerable exploration.
And when Lorde sings “Let’s hear it for the mean of the year,” she’s actually referring to herself in a way. After all, in an interview with Triple J, Lorde revealed the construct of the song began in 2023, after she attended the GQ Men Of The Year party, saying “I wrote the song the next day [ā¦] I wore a āhot girl dressā and felt so not like myself [ā¦] the next day we were in the studio and I was like āI wanna write a song about how Iām the Man Of The Year to me.'”
The “Man of the Year” music video is pretty deep, too.
In the music video for “Man of the Year,” we see Lorde strip down and bind her chest with duct tape ā which is a reference to her 2025 Met Gala look that really brought her whole gender journey ot the forefront. As the music video progresses, we see Lorde writhe in a massive pile of dirt as she sings before curling into a ball in stillness.
Not only is the entire video visually stunning, but it’s symbolic. From the duct tape to the dirt, Lorde illustrates how exploring and expanding your gender can be messy ā and, in a society that so heavily enforces the gender binary, it can even feel like you’re dirty. (Which, ICYMI, simply is not true.)
IDK about you, but I can’t wait to hear the rest of Virgin. Like, stat.