THE WORKS OF LORDE: A COMING-OF-AGE ACROSS ALBUMS

Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor, better known by her stage name Lorde, was twelve years old when she first entered the music industry. Scouted by Universal Music Group after a talent show performance, Lorde is an example of an artist who truly grew up in the industry. Lorde was freshly sixteen at the time of the release of her first body of work, The Love Club EP, which she self-published through SoundCloud. She then released her first full-length album Pure Heroine less than a month before her seventeenth birthday. Pure Heroine (the extended version of which contains all the tracks featured on The Love Club EP) is truly a work of teenagedom: an unfiltered portrait of the social and emotional battlefield of adolescence. She followed this debut with two more full-length albums: Melodrama (2017) and Solar Power (2021).

Pure Heroine

The lyrical themes of Pure Heroine can be divided roughly into the categories of rebellion, nostalgia, social interaction and isolation, and stardom.

Perhaps it is sensible to start with the theme of rebellion, which produced the track Lorde is best known for: “Royals.”

And everybody’s like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece

Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash

We don’t care

We aren’t caught up in your love affair

In the song’s pre-chorus, Lorde boldly refutes the stereotypes and fantasies often pushed in modern media. She asserts her indifference towards what is expected of her as a young person and a young star.

Let me be your ruler

You can call me Queen Bee

And baby I’ll rule

Let me live that fantasy

She establishes her own kingdom. She leads her own faction. These themes are repeated in lyrics from the tracks “Glory and Gore” and “Team.” “Glory and Gore” metaphorically inserts Lorde into a battle, a gladiator-age arena.

And now we’re in the ring and we’re coming for blood … You could try to take us But victory’s contagious “Glory and Gore” exemplifies the more violent symbolism with which Lorde approaches her teenage experience. It is a battle cry that pulls no punches. “Team,” contrarily, employs an equally powerful nonchalance: We’re kind of tired of getting told to throw our hands up in the air

So there

The final line of the song’s chorus, “So there,” is delivered with complete apathy. These three tracks come together to characterize the adolescent rebellion Lorde presents in Pure Heroine as a whole: a combination of recklessness and the utter indifference that fuels it.

Home

It drives you crazy, getting old

In the opening verse, Lorde paints the picture of the kind of party everyone is familiar with. It is unremarkable. It is naive. “My mom and dad let me stay home:” this lyric screams youth and immaturity. Plainly, Lorde states her longing for a simpler past, saying, “It drives you crazy, getting old.” She once again utilizes childish language in the song’s chorus.

We can talk it so good

The grammatical error and the phrasing are reminiscent of that of a young child. Both the verses and the chorus of “Ribs” drip with nostalgia; however, it is the post-chorus and outro that unabashedly drives this point home.

I want ‘em back

The minds we had

How all the thoughts

Moved ‘round our heads

I want ‘em back

The minds we had

It’s not enough to feel the lack

I want ‘em back, I want ‘em back, I want ‘em

There is no greater anthem of nostalgia than Lorde’s “Ribs,” a six-minutelong track that takes the listener right back to a fantastical youth.

The drink you spilt all over me

Lover’s Spit left on repeat

My mom and dad let me stay

These lyrics, echoed and desperate, beg for the imagination and carelessness of a child’s mind. “It’s not enough to feel the lack:” self-awareness does not mitigate this pain. Lorde finds herself torn away from the comforts of her childhood, fearfully looking towards an unknown future. It is understandable, the angst and anger that is born from this terror.

The most overarching theme of Pure Heroine is naturally that of the social. From feelings of rejection, isolation, distaste, and even hatred towards some people to her fierce dependence on others, Lorde’s writings holistically encompass the adolescent social experience. In “Tennis Court,” she criticizes social structures and stereotypes.

Baby, be the class clown

I’ll be the beauty queen in tears

It’s a new art form

Showing people how little we care

She caustically points out the ridiculousness of social performance in high school and in general life. In “Buzzcut Season,” she is a young girl angry at the disaster that is the world being handed to her

Explosions on TV

And all the girls with heads inside a dream …

And I’ll never go home again and in “World Alone,” she is angry at the people that world contains.

All the double-edged people and schemes

They make a mess then go home and get clean

In “White Teeth Teens” and “The Love Club,” Lorde comments on a lack of true belonging even in groups she, appearance-wise, is a member of.

I let you in on something big

I’m not a white teeth teen

I tried to join, but never did

The way they are, the way they seem

After building up an entire song describing her antics and activities with said white teeth teens, she shatters this image in the bridge. In “The Love Club,” she declares from the very first lyric:

I’m in a clique but I want out

She rejects and feels rejected by her supposed companions. However, even amidst these criticisms and complaints, throughout Pure Heroine, Lorde addresses a certain “you.” In the events of “Buzzcut Season,”

But you laughed, “Baby, it’s ok” …

But now we live beside the pool

And everything is good …

I live in a hologram with you Lorde is not alone. She faces the burning world comforted by this friend. The same is true in “A World Alone:” And people are talking, people are talking

But not you …

Let ‘em talk ‘cause we’re danc ing in this world alone

Lorde finds a haven from society in “you.” In “400 Lux,” this “you” is even able to relieve her of the drudgery of day-to-day life.

We’re never done with killing time

Can I kill it with you?

What Lorde has is a deep, dependent relationship. Deep, dependent, and also volatile. In “A World Alone,” she admits

I know we’re not everlasting We’re a trainwreck

Waiting to happen

Lorde paints a picture of complete social tension. She is torn between isolation and co-dependence. She encapsulates perhaps the greatest struggle of growing up: the absence of both stable and fulfilling social relationships.

It is one of Pure Heroine’s most often-overlooked tracks that contains some of the most important messaging in regard to stardom: “Bravado.”

All my life

I’ve been fighting a war … My heart jumps around when

I’m alluded to …

It’s the closest thing to assault when all eyes are on you

In “Bravado,” Lorde details her experience as a performer — as someone who has been a performer her whole life. The song starts off slow and dark in the first verse, as she describes the

I was frightened of

Every little thing that I thought was out to get me down

To trip me up

To laugh at me

But I learned Not to want

The quiet of a room with no one around to find me out

I want the applause, the ap proval, the things that make me go, oh

With the chorus comes a blaring organ track and a change from a minor to a major key. Both with her lyrics and music does Lorde convey the switch she makes, the mask she puts on to face a crowd. It is notable that “Bravado” was part of Lorde’s original EP, The Love Club. It is truly a marker of her journey into performance and fame. Lorde then furthers this theme with “Still Sane”

Riding around on our bikes we’re still sane

I won’t be her tripping over on stage

It’s all cool

Still like hotels but I think that’ll change

Still like hotels in my newfound fame

Promise I can stay good

In the chorus of the song, Lorde establishes and before and after: as a child, riding her bike, she is “still sane.” She is not like the other stars “tripping over on stage.” This changes when she enters into music and into fame. She reflects that she is new enough to the scene that she still finds hotels exciting; she is still enthusiastic about the experience.

All in all, Pure Heroine is a refusal, a cry of rebellion and anger. Lorde is young, inexperienced, and filled with teenage angst.

Melodrama

Melodrama, released in June of 2017, is the musings of now almost-twentyyear-old Lorde. It carries a significant amount of the anger and recklessness displayed in Pure Heroine. For example, Pure Heroine’s theme of violence is heavily featured in Melodrama as well. From the drug usage in “Perfect Places”

All of the things we’re taking ‘cause we are young and we’re ashamed and “Sober”

Ain’t a pill that could touch our rush to the abandoned champagne glasses and hungover regret in “Sober II (Melodrama),”

All the gunfights and the limelights

And the holy sick divine nights

They’ll talk about us

All the lovers

How we kiss and kill each other Lorde once again takes emotions of love and anger to brutal extremes. Lorde’s sardonic and caustic outlook on society and relationships is also on full display. This is best exemplified by the cynical track “Loveless.”

Bet you wanna rip my heart out

Bet you wanna skip my calls now

Well, guess what? I like that … L-O-V-E-L-E-S-S generation

All fucking with our lovers’ heads generation prise),” “Hard Feelings,” “Writer In the Dark” — Lorde paints a bleaker picture. Gone in these tracks is the energy of rebellion and anger present in Pure Heroine. She draws on painfully familiar imagery of independent, adult life to paint a picture of true loneliness. In the second verse of “Writer In the Dark,” she states

Here, Lorde, full of vitriol, takes on a taunting tone. Attached to a previous break-up ballad “Hard Feelings,” “Loveless” is the other side of the coin of heartbreak: bitterness.

I still see you now and then Slow like pseudoephedrine

If you see me, will you say I’ve changed?

I ride the subway, read the signs

I let the seasons change my mind

References to cold medicine and the subway suddenly humanize the suffering that was much more glorious and grand in Pure Heroine. In “Hard Feelings,” she writes in the outro: But I still remember everything How we’d drift buying groceries

How you’d dance for me

In Melodrama, Lorde gives concrete details to the deep relationships she referenced in Pure Heroine. The “you” is defined and, devastatingly, has left. In Pure Heroine, even in her darkest moments, she was accompanied. In Melodrama, she is completely left on her own. In this way, Melodrama becomes a markedly transitional album. Written while Lorde was eighteen and nineteen, Melodrama documents a time in her life in which she is growing into adulthood. She is living on her own; she is thrust into the adult world. With it, she presents newfound loss.

However, in addition to established themes, Melodrama also showcases a deeper sorrow, a more profound suffering. The majority of the album’s tracks — “Liability,” “Liability (Re-

Melodrama stands out as an album written in a period of change. Listeners can see both the pulls of young, teenage Lorde and the sorrows of the adulthood she comes into. Melodrama, both musically and thematically, acts as the perfect bridge between where Lorde’s career begins and where it currently stands.

Solar Power

Solar Power, Lorde’s third album, comes nearly a decade after her first release. With it, Lorde makes a complete 180 in both her style and her themes. Gone nearly completely is the high-octane nature of 16-year-old Lorde. At 24, Lorde has acquired both peace and wisdom her younger self never even dreamed of. Perhaps the starkest example of this in her lyrical choices is the callback to Melodrama’s most notoriously painful track, “Liability.” In this song, she sings:

Every perfect summer’s eating me alive until you’re gone Better on my own

In Solar Power’s “Big Star,” she makes a callback to the “every perfect summer” lyric.

Every perfect summer’s gotta take its flight

I’ll still watch you run through the winter light

I used to love the party, now I’m not alright

I think it is important to highlight here that Solar Power does not lack pain or heartache: this is evidenced by the above lyrics. What separates Solar Power from Lorde’s previous bodies of work is how she approaches this pain. In “Liability,” she carries over from Pure Heroine that aura of rebellion and stubborn independence: “Better on my own.” Whereas in “Big Star,” Lorde acknowledges her heartbreak. “I’ll still watch you run through the winter light / I used to love the party, now I’m not alright.” She takes a reflective stance. She does not blame nor refute; instead, she hopes. The ill will and anger present in her previous albums are long gone. She shows maturity through this display of heartache.

What makes Solar Power believable as a stepping stone on Lorde’s path is just that. The album, despite its general air of enlightenment, still discusses emotional struggles and intrapersonal turmoil. With “Mood Ring,” Lorde explains how she cannot find a remedy for her emotional numbness:

I’m trying to blow bubble but inside

Can’t seem to fix my mood

Today it’s as dark as my roots

She acknowledges that even with the persona she has adopted, the hair she has dyed, she is still unable to “fix” her emotional struggles. In “Fallen Fruit,” she conveys her difficulty grappling with the impossibility of true bliss: But how can I love what I know I am gonna lose? Don’t make me choose

The fallen fruit

She even goes so far as to discuss an amused annoyance with an elusive past boyfriend in “Dominoes:”

The whole world changes right around you

You get fifty gleaming chances in a row

And I watch you flick them down like dominoes

Must feel good being Mr. Start Again

This lighthearted nature of her criticism or ill-feeling towards someone is something that would have been impossible in her Pure Heroine or Melodrama eras. She jokes about the man’s drug use, about his yoga sessions with Uma Thurman’s mother. The listener can tell that she does not harbor serious hatred towards this man the same way she did towards her enemies in Pure Heroine. No longer do these negative emotions weigh her down. Lorde’s experience with pain in Solar Power can be distinguished from those of Pure Heroine and Melodrama in the sense that no longer does she wallow in her suffering, no longer does she self-destruct. She still suffers: but she takes this suffering at face value. This is what shows her growth and maturity. This is emphasized one final time in the album’s closing song, “Oceanic Feeling.” In this track, Lorde takes listeners on a journey of reflection and contemplation. She describes a calming scene, sounds of the sea playing softly in the background. She balances wisdom and retrospection

Baby boy, you’re super cool I know you’re scared So was I

But all will be revealed in time

I can make anything real … Just had to breathe And tune in with acknowledgment of what she is yet to learn.

O, was enlightenment found? No but I’m trying

Taking it one year at a time

She is on a journey of growth, a journey on which she has found peace. She makes an overt callback to her music video for “Tennis Court” in which she sports dark lipstick, mouthing the scathing lyrics.

Now the cherry black lipstick’s gathering dust in a drawer

I don’t need her anymore ‘Cause I’ve got this power Here, she leaves behind the anger and bitterness she previously used as a defense mechanism. She opens her heart; instead of warding off pain with substances or risk-taking or violence, she accepts it. She no longer views heartbreak as the horror she once did. She is no longer afraid of suffering.

Lastly, I would be amiss not to mention Lorde’s most overt of songs on Solar Power: her love letter to her past self, “Secrets from a Girl (Who’s Seen it All):”

Couldn’t wait to turn fifteen

Then you blink and it’s been ten years

Here, she references directly the time frame of her first release and now.

Growing up a little at a time, then all at once

Everybody wants the best for you

But you gotta want it for yourself, my love

She speaks with a tender affection. She offers perspective; she has come to understand what she refuted in her teenage years.

Remember all the hurt you would feel when you weren’t desired?

Remember what you thought was grief before you got the call?

In the second verse of the song, Lorde reminisces about a time in which her perspective was much narrower. Without condescension or patronization, she points out the ignorance of her past self. Lastly, in spoken word, Lorde cleverly plays with the announcement of a flight attendant.

Thank you for flying with Strange Airlines...

Your emotional baggage can be picked up at Carousel Number 2

Please be careful so that it doesn’t fall onto someone you love…

We can go look at the sunrise by euphoria mixed with exis tential vertigo? Cool

Lorde’s tone is comforting, like an older sister here to offer advice. She doesn’t know it all; far from it. However, she has healed. She has grown as a person and as a songwriter. Solar Power is Lorde amidst healing. I look forward greatly to what Lorde will produce next.