{"id":3798,"date":"2021-09-28T15:49:21","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T20:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/read.streamapse.com\/?p=3798"},"modified":"2021-09-28T15:49:21","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T20:49:21","slug":"lorde-this-album-is-about-the-passing-of-time-and-being-ok-with-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/?p=3798","title":{"rendered":"Lorde – This Album Is About The Passing Of Time And Being OK With That"},"content":{"rendered":"

Article <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Lorde\u2019s third album Solar Power was born out of an epiphany. \u201cI was very much raised outdoors by the beach, in the ocean, outside,\u201d the New Zealand pop titan tells Apple Music. \u201cBut it wasn’t until I got my dog that I understood how precious the natural world is and how many gifts there are for someone like me to receive. I felt like all I was doing was paying attention and being rewarded tenfold with things that would not just lift my mood, but legitimately inspire me.\u201d The death of her dog, Pearl, in 2019, slowed down the production of the album, but what Lorde learned from him\u2014the joy of being outside, even if it\u2019s just at your local park\u2014flows through the finished product.<\/p>\n

Expressing all of that in the twisted, spring-tight pop of 2013\u2019s Pure Heroine and its dizzying 2017 follow-up Melodrama was never going to work. So she turned instead to a (somewhat unlikely) palette crafted alongside returning producer Jack Antonoff\u2014shuttling between LA and New Zealand in 2019 and 2020 and finishing it remotely during the pandemic\u2014of \u201970s Laurel Canyon and early-2000s pop. \u201cI think, on paper, it doesn\u2019t make any sense,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I was like, \u2018What\u2019s something that\u2019s captured the experience of being outside or feeling the sun and a certain kind of joy?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Solar Power might well be seen as just that: an album to kick back with on a summer\u2019s day. But there is, as Lorde puts it, \u201cdeep and shallow\u201d to this record. There are meditations on celebrity culture (\u201cCalifornia\u201d) and the wellness industry (\u201cMood Ring\u201d), alongside sorrow for the destruction of the natural world. This isn\u2019t, however, a climate change album (\u201cIt definitely wasn’t a goal of mine to make people care; I can’t make that happen for you\u201d). If it\u2019s about anything, she says, it\u2019s about \u201cthe passing of time and being OK with that. All my work is sort of about that. All these works are just me trying to ask a series of questions. And if that makes people ask their own questions of their world, then I\u2019ve done a good job.\u201d Read on as Ella Yelich-O\u2019Connor guides us through Solar Power, one track at a time.<\/p>\n

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Stream Lorde’s Solar Power<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe Path\u201d
\n\u201cThis was the first one I wrote for the album, and I always knew it would open it. I wanted to bring people right up to speed: This is where I’m at. This is the wave. As I get older, I feel the absurd nature of our modern life more every day, and some of the images in this song really play into that. I\u2019ve also been thinking more about people in my position and the worship that comes towards someone like me. I thought about dismantling that and saying, \u2018Let’s leave that at the door for this one and make it about something else.\u2019 It was really fun, golden and sassy to be like, \u2018It’s not going to be me. I’m sorry. Let’s redirect.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSolar Power\u201d
\n\u201cThis song was featherlight. It\u2019s just a song about being happy in the sunshine, which is kind of a crazy move for me. But It’s a bit dark and weird, with lots of cult and commune imagery. I knew that people would kind of be like, \u2018What the fuck is she talking about?\u2019 On the surface it\u2019s light, but it\u2019s got a lot to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia\u201d
\n\u201cCalifornia and LA are places I have a huge amount of affection for. I find it really alluring and mystical and kind of dreamy, but it also totally freaks me out. It isn’t where I am supposed to be right now, so I’ve tapped out. I’ve been listening to a lot of The Mamas & The Papas, so that was a melodic reference. There\u2019s kind of an eeriness to this song, and a lot of people have tried to get at that when capturing LA in movies and in music. I love the line about the kids in the line for \u2018the new Supreme.\u2019 It’s a classic me thing to say something that is modern, but could sound classic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStoned at the Nail Salon\u201d
\n\u201cThis was one of the first few we wrote. I think of it as coming right at the tail end of Melodrama. My life is very low-key and very domestic. It’s like the life of a hippie housewife. It really struck me when the Grammys or VMAs were on and I was trying to get a stream on my computer and I couldn’t. It felt so outside of that part of my life. I was starting to have these thoughts like, \u2018Am I choosing the right path here by hanging up the phone, so to speak? And just hanging out with my dog and making lunch every day?\u2019 The vocals that are on the song are the ones that we recorded the day we wrote it. So it kind of has this loose, organic quality that came to be a big part of Solar Power.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFallen Fruit\u201d
\n\u201cI was going to LA to write with Jack and I started this on the plane. There\u2019s always a slightly kind of unhinged or unfiltered quality to songs I write on planes, because I\u2019m at altitude or something. I had been very careful before that point about not being preachy or like, \u2018Hi, I\u2019m a pop star and this is my climate change album!\u2019 But I just had this moment where I was like, \u2018This is the great loss of our lives and this will be what comes to define all of our lives and our world will be unrecognizable for my children.\u2019 I loved trying to make it sound like this flower child\u2019s lament and making it sound very Laurel Canyon, essentially. At the same time, there\u2019s only one 808 on this record\u2014and it\u2019s in the breakdown of this song. It\u2019s me describing an escape to somewhere safe that takes place in the future when our world has become uninhabitable. I liked snapping into a kind of modern thing for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSecrets From a Girl (Who’s Seen It All)\u201d
\n\u201cThis is me talking to my younger self trying to impart some of the things that I learned. It was a fun place to write from. To me it\u2019s very Eurythmics meets Robyn. And then we got Robyn to do the incredible spoken part. She\u2019s someone I have learned a huge amount from, through song. She really completed the experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Man With the Axe\u201d
\n\u201cI wrote this track almost as a poem. I was very hung over and I think that fragile, vulnerable quality made it in here. It\u2019s funny because it\u2019s kind of melancholy, but I also think of it as very cozy. I\u2019m expressing a huge amount of love and affection for someone. To me, it sounds very private\u2014I sort of don\u2019t even like thinking about people listening to it because it’s just for me. [US producer] Malay did the coolest chords. I really didn\u2019t change the poem, apart from maybe taking one line out. That was one of the biggest accomplishments of the album.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDominoes\u201d
\n\u201cSolar Power is about utopias, and wellness is very much a utopia. It was also a big facet of the kind of \u201960s, \u201970s, New Age enlightenment, Age of Aquarius\u2014seeking this thing that will give us the answers and make us feel whole. I feel like everyone kind of knows someone like this. It really cracked me up to say, \u2018It\u2019s strange to see you smoking marijuana, you used to do the most cocaine of anyone I\u2019ve ever met.\u2019 We all know that guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBig Star\u201d
\n\u201cThe title of this song is a nod to Big Star the band, who I absolutely love. When I think about a song like \u2018Thirteen\u2019 by Big Star, there\u2019s something so kind of childlike about it, and the song channels a similar thing. But I also loved the image of the people that we love being like celebrities to us. When I see a picture of a loved one, I feel like you get the same chemicals as if I was seeing a celebrity. They\u2019re famous in my heart. But really, this is just a song about my dog. I wrote it when he was a puppy. I was just like, \u2018Holy shit, I\u2019ve never loved anything as much in my life.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLeader of a New Regime\u201d
\n\u201cI wanted to have a little reprieve and go in that Crosby, Stills & Nash direction a little bit and be like, \u2018Where\u2019s it going to go from here?\u2019 Whether it\u2019s culturally, politically, environmentally, socially, spiritually. I felt that desire for doing something new.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMood Ring\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s full satire, inhabiting a person who\u2019s feeling really lost and disconnected in the modern world and is trying to feel well, however she can. I felt like so many people would be able to relate to that. It was funny and gnarly to write. The melodies and the production were a great blend of that early-2000s sound and then that kind of Age of Aquarius energy. They both very much had to be present on this song.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOceanic Feeling\u201d
\n\u201cI knew this would be the last track. I really wanted it to sound like when I get up in the morning at home and go outside and think about what the day\u2019s going to hold. Am I going to go to the beach? Am I going to go fishing? What\u2019s going to happen? I wanted to make something that people from New Zealand would hear and would feel like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m this. That’s where I\u2019m from.\u2019 But I was also ruminating on a lot. My little brother had been in a car accident and had had a concussion and was really lost and confused. And I wanted to say to him that it was going to be OK. I was thinking a lot about my parents and this deep connection we have to our land. I was thinking about my children. I really liked the end saying, \u2018I\u2019ll know when it\u2019s time to take off my robes and step into the choir.\u2019 It sort of connects that first sentiment of \u2018If you’re looking for a savior, that\u2019s not me\u2019 and \u2018One day, maybe I won\u2019t be doing this. Who knows?\u2019 My music is so singular. I\u2019m pretty much at the center of it. I thought that was a really powerful image to leave with: \u2018One day, I too will depart.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article Lorde\u2019s third album Solar Power was born out of an epiphany. \u201cI was very much raised outdoors by the beach, in the ocean, outside,\u201d the New Zealand pop titan tells Apple Music. \u201cBut it wasn’t until I got my dog that I understood how precious the natural world is and how many gifts there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[85,86,546,618,259],"class_list":["post-3798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-about","tag-album","tag-being","tag-lorde","tag-passing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}