It's no secret that Lorde is a talented songwriter. Her songs ooze emotion, and her lyrics are works of art in themselves. Here are just a few of the lyrics from her newest album, Melodrama, that prove just that.
1. “Jack and Jill get fucked up and possessive when it gets dark.” -Sober
My favorite Lorde lyric to date, and possibly my favorite lyric ever. Lorde expertly melds childhood symbols with adult themes in this line, and when I first heard it, I was in awe. It’s one of those lines that makes you think, which Lorde is an expert at. She uses Jack and Jill, two popular storybook figures, to illustrate her own relationship. It also has the added effect of imagining Jack and Jill at a house party, which is kind of hilarious.
2. “Can you hear the violence? Megaphone to my chest, broadcast the boom boom boom boom and make ‘em all dance to it.” -The Louvre
While a little more complex, this line is just as genius. The latter half of the line is actually the chorus of the song, which made me want to look at the line preceding it. She paints an image of dancing to the sounds of pain, which creates a similar dichotomy to the last lyric. “Make ‘em all dance to it” paints an image of forced fun, all while listening to the sounds of violence and her inner struggle.
3. “Oh how fast the evening passes, cleaning up the champagne glasses” - Sober Pt. II (Melodrama)
Lorde has said that this album is a representation of a house party, and every song is a different part of the party. In this reprise to “Sober,” she draws a beautifully haunting picture of the ending of the party, not only in the lyrics, but in the (no pun intended) melodramatic intro. This line captures something most people don’t think of as beautiful, but there is something artistic in the end of the party, just as much as the peak of it. Lorde captures that perfectly here.
4. “I hate the headlines and the weather” -Perfect Places
Lorde herself says this line was written at the end of August 2016 in New York City, perfectly describing the context for the headlines and weather she is talking about. This line is much more straightforward than a lot of her other lines, but they’re something inherently genius about that as well. Who likes the headlines? Who likes hot and sticky August weather? Hashtag relatable.
5. "We slow dance in the living room, but all that a stranger would see is one girl swaying alone, stroking her cheek” -Liability
The full line says that she is going home to the woman she loves, the only love she hasn’t screwed up. When I first listened to it, I assumed, incorrectly, that she was alluding to a same-sex romance. But I was wrong. Lorde was actually alluding to BREAKING MY HEART. How insanely gorgeous is this lyric? She illustrates a beautiful, healthy romance, only to conclude by admitting that it is with herself.
Unrelated to the content of this article, I just want to make sure everyone knows that Lorde ran a secret Instagram account devoted solely to rating onion rings wherever she went while writing this album. She's my hero.
