Lorde has opened up about what's behind her new hit Perfect Places. Photo / AP
Lorde has opened up about what's behind her new hit Perfect Places. Photo / AP
Lorde has taken to the internet to quietly open up about her latest single and her thoughts behind the lyrics.
The Kiwi pop star took it upon herself to annotate the song's lyrics on Genius, giving insight into her party lifestyle, mourning her heroes and being "a mess".
Some of the lines are about as simple as they sound; "Watch the wasters blow the speakers" is literally just a memory Lorde has of watching her drunk friends blow the speakers at a party.
"This line I remember writing down when I was standing on my porch watching my friends fiddle with the speakers inside and thinking 'Oh, in about ten seconds they're gonna go...'
"I wrote this lyric in November of 2016, but then in December me and my friend drank a bunch of one part champagne, one part vodka cocktails which we christened Suicides, and DJ-ed a really raucous Christmas party - we had this crazy room going then blew the speakers spectacularly and ghosted out of there. So yeah. Kind of about me. I'm a mess."
Others, like "the most Melodrama line on the whole album" have a bit more depth. The line, "I hate the headlines and the weather" was born of the summer of 2016.
"The news was just horrific every day and it was so hot in this sickly, incorrect kind of way, like what I imagine the weather in a disaster movie is like just before the bomb hits or the aliens land.
"It sort of drove me insane, I was walking around Midtown every day and felt like I was this close to ripping my clothes off or freaking out at a stranger.
"And every day in the news it'd be like 'Silver lining! Record high temperatures all weekend' and I'd think, 'DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS MEANS!!!!!!!! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!' This is probably the most Melodrama line on the whole album.
The line about "all of our heroes fading" is, as many suspected to do with mourning the deaths of Prince and David Bowie, which Lorde says hit hard and "a massive light went out".
But it's the explanation of the line "Now I can't stand to be alone" which really sums up the vibe of Perfect Places and Melodrama as a whole.
"Another big realisation of the last year for me [was], 'I think I'm partying so much because I'm just dreading sitting at home by myself hearing my thoughts hit the walls'.
"I think parties are a really interesting mental exercise/take on a few different layers when you're feeling like this. Kind of what the album is about."
