I still remember where I was the first time I heard Lorde’s music: on a ferry ride in December 2013, playing around on my green iPod touch, where I had just downloaded the “30 days of iTunes” app. Little did I know that the first gift would change the trajectory of my life forever. As I sat and watched the “Royals” music video, my nine-year-old self couldn’t help but listen in awe.
As I watched people gather in Washington Square Park amidst a cryptic Instagram story, in my dorm room, I sat in reflection of that girl. It’s no longer winter vacation, it’s the end of the spring semester, and it feels like every time my life is shifting, Lorde reemerges.
On April 24, Lorde released her new single, “What Was That”, after teasing a snippet on a TikTok account she had made. This marked her return to the synth-pop style she had so well honed in Melodrama. The music video that comes with it, filmed in New York City, features Lorde wandering through the city and culminates in a dance performance at Washington Square Park, where she was surrounded by fans recording the moment.
In a recent interview with Document, Lorde opened up about her evolving relationship with her body and gender identity, which greatly influenced her new album Virgin. She described experiencing a rebirth in 2023 that culminated in her new single.
When Pure Heroine came out, that was the first time I felt seen. This album explored the rules of girlhood and how you didn’t have to follow them. The way she sang about being bored in the suburbs made it seem so holy. It opened up space for me to be dreamy and young, because if she could do it, then so could I. I would play “A World Alone” over and over again, and press repeat on the album from start to finish.
Then came Melodrama in 2017. Being an angsty 13-year-old was prime time to listen to it. Melodrama was complex, chaotic, and allowed every emotion to pass through at a volume I didn’t yet know how to manage. But her album didn’t quiet the chaos, it gave it shape. The entire story she tells makes it okay to be messy and to love too much and to fall apart.
Solar Power was long-awaited. It found me in my last year of high school in all its quiet, sunny glory. My world was slowly rearranging, and through it, I learned to love the peace that she talks about. All her talk of healing and sunlight was something I kept with me. Solar Power doesn’t ask you to be okay, but offers you peace that looks different. Peace that is slow and earned.
Her new music will also inhabit milestones. With every release, I can trace back exactly when and where I was, how I was feeling, and just what drew me to her music. Her brutal honesty and her vivid descriptions of being a teenager; every line was something I never expected to hear but needed to hear. You don’t choose what chapter of your life you’re in; Lorde does for you.
This speaks to just how beautiful it is that music can hold memories for you. The second Lorde teased her return, I immediately had “Supercut” on repeat, and everything came flooding back. But this time, it combined both of our voices. Every version of myself that I’ve been while listening to her.
In her music, it’s almost like the phenomenon of an ocean sound shell. You don’t expect to hear the whispers, but you do. She’s able to turn emotions and the mundane into an exhaustion of feelings that often feel so hard to place.
The version of myself is now 20, and she’s circling back on all of Lorde’s songs with lived experience. I’m no longer that little girl fidgeting on her iPod. I’m now the girl in her college dorm, calling over her roommate to tell her that “Lorde has risen”. I’m now the girl who takes walks listening to Melodrama, understanding the fever-dream rush of first love. Not only has her music grown with me, but it’s helped me grow. Without her constant voice, I wouldn’t be the girl I am today.
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