Written by Davis McClure
Virgin – Lorde – Reborn.
“What Was That”? A question you might’ve asked yourself if you were active on Tik-Tok the week of April 9th, 2025 when New Zealand singer Ella Yelich-O’Connor (AKA Lorde) made not only her debut on the platform, but also the debut of her comeback single “What Was That”.
Accumulating just over 37 million views, Lorde uploaded a video of her walking through Washington Square Park to a soundbite of the chorus to her unreleased single. This comes after Lorde featured on Charli xcx’s album “Brat” last year, which dominated conversations online and coined the term “Brat Summer”. With comments and videos from influential artists like Laufey, Tate Mcrae, Olivia Rodrigo and just about every brand on the planet, it suddenly felt like a “Lorde Summer” was defrosting.
The reception of the single was impressive, with it reaching number one on the U.S. Spotify streaming chart. However, this isn’t shocking. “What Was That” was a sonic 180 from her previous album “Solar Power”, which wasn’t widely appreciated by the general public, but simultaneously a return to a sound closer to her first two albums, “Pure Heroine” and “Melodrama”. Lorde was singing about being seventeen again, and suddenly the timeline shifted.
The breezy beach tunes of Solar Power were left at the shores of New Zealand. Now, she’s living in New York City and this album reflects that, with references to Canal street, Prince street, and Washington Square Park.
Virgin is Lorde’s most intimate and honest album yet. It was born from the recent period in her life in which she stopped taking her birth control for the first time since she was fifteen. With hormones all kinds of unbalanced, and her skin reacting accordingly, she stated this felt like a rebirth or a ‘second puberty’. The goal of this work for Lorde was transparency to the max. She dives headfirst into the personal topics of her eating disorder, gender identity, pregnancy scares, and generational trauma. The best way I can describe the vibe of this album is as if you were having an identity crisis at the club… in the best way?
If you were to listen to this album for the first time, I would recommend a dark room with noise canceling headphones.
-“Hammer” –
Lorde describes the intro of “Hammer” as guttural, despite it being machine made. As if it came from a human body. Lorde emphasizes the idea of what it’s like to live in the modern day where “machines cry and sing just like humans do”, she told Zane Lowe. Despite using synthetic sounds, Lorde somehow humanizes them.
“I might have been born again, I’m ready to feel like I don’t have the answers yet.” In the process of her “Rebirth”, she is excited to experience a sense of naivety again. The kind she has been writing about since she was 12 years old. Lorde is redefining purity in her own terms. In direct contradiction to the album title, Lorde sings of her intimate life all throughout this record, finding purity not in abstinence, but in honesty.
-“What Was That?”-
Lorde returns to synth pop with “What Was That.” A song reflecting on a breakup and possibly her career as a singer. “A place in the city. A chair and a bed. I cover up all the mirrors, I can’t see myself yet.” Lorde opens the song setting the scene to the environment she has been in. Physically, she is in a minimal New York apartment; but also in a mental space of self-avoidance.
“Do you know you’re still with me, when I’m out with my friends?” Lorde works through her ruminating in music venues, forced to face reality. That feeling of looking for someone’s face in a crowd, knowing you won’t find them. “When I’m in the blue light, down at Baby’s All Right, I face reality”. Since “Pure Heroine” came out when she was only sixteen years old, this could also be about fame itself. “Since l was seventeen, I gave you everything, now we wake from a dream, well, baby, what was that?”.
As mentioned previously, Lorde teased the chorus to this song on TikTok. But she didn’t stop there. She took to socials on April 22, 2025, inviting fans to meet her in Washington Square Park with only a few hours notice. Hundreds of fans arrived and due to the flash mob sized crowd, NYPD was quick to shut it down. Despite this, two hours after police intervention, Lorde returned and performed the entirety of “What Was That” from the fountain. A drone captured footage of the performance and it was used for the official music video, which came out the day after the event.
-“Shapeshifter”-
“I’ve been the ice, I’ve been the flame, I’ve been the prize, the ball and chain”. In an interview with Triple J, she breaks down the chorus to Shapeshifter. The track lists every ‘shape’ she has ever shifted into in hopes to be loved. “I’ve been up on the pedestal, But tonight I just wanna fall”. After listing everything she has “Shapeshifted” into, she goes back and states how despite all these roles she has had projected on her, she just wants to fall for someone for just being her.
“I’ll kick you out and pull you in, Swear that you were just a friend, And when it’s all over again, Say I’m not affected” this verse paints the canon event of trying to win the unbothered competition after a breakup. Going from fling to fling to try and erase her ex. The ending of this song, in my opinion, captures one of her best vocals on the album. I actually got chills the first time I listened to it.
-“Man Of The Year”-
In the second single to Virgin, we get three minutes of Lorde’s gender identity crisis. The song starts in a slow, very vulnerable sound. This isn’t a clean cut realization, it’s messy and human.“You met me at a really strange time in my life”.“Can’t believe I’ve become someone else, someone more like myself”. It traces back to the “Men of the Year” GQ event in 2023, a turning point in her gender identity. She wore a “hot girl dress” and felt completely unlike herself. The next day, she wrote this song.
In the music video, she is binding her chest with duct tape and rolling around in dirt in an empty NYC loft. I interpret this as a visual representation of her struggling and going through the waves of an identity crisis. In society, gender binary seems to be the standard for most. Rolling around in the dirt could represent how messy and ‘dirty’ it can feel to explore and experiment. As the track reaches a close, we reach an emotional catharsis. The production comes crashing in out of left field. The loud vocals and drums transport us to an entirely different realm as the first half of the song. She’s not questioning anymore, she’s owning it. It’s as if she’s standing on that GQ stage, accepting her “Man of the Year” award.
-“Favourite Daughter”-
Lorde’s mom, Sonja Yelich, is a poet and that legacy looms over her. “Why’d you have to dream so big?”. Since she’s been writing since she was twelve, you can feel how much her mother’s shadow shaped her.
“’Cause I’m an actress, all of the medals I won for ya, breaking my back just to be your favourite daughter”.
“Every night, the room fills up with people who are convinced I’m not just some kid fakin’ it for your love”. Her imposter syndrome shines through here. She relates her success in her career to her personal relationship.
“For evеry door you open, there’s a room I can’t go in, I break in, I still can’t find you.” This verse also offers another perspective, that not only is she seeking her mothers validation but her attention and genuine connection. Her mom might be providing opportunities for her to shine as a writer due to her experience, but this suggests she is emotionally unavailable to O’Connor.
Inside of this pop star, is still a little girl from Auckland trying to be seen as enough by her mother.
-“Current Affairs”-
We’re back to crying in the club with a sample of Dexta Daps’ “Morning Love” on the sixth track, Current Affairs.
In this song, she explores her use of romantic partners as a coping mechanism. This track pairs the sensuality of “Morning Love” and emotional turmoil in her lyrics.
Once again, we are met with more mother lore. It seems as though her print is all over this album. In this strange spot in her life, Lorde finds herself wanting to cry to her mom, and this song is essentially that. When she actually goes to talk to her mom, she can’t bring herself to be honest. “But now I’m cryin’ on the phone, swearing nothing’s wrong, blame it on – current affairs”. When on the phone with her mother, she can’t help but cry. Instead of opening up to her about her personal struggles, she blames it on ‘Current affairs’. Only able to admit her true feelings seemingly in this song alone. “Mama, I’m so scared, don’t know how to come back, once I get out on the edge”.
-“Clearblue”-
In the jarring seventh track, Clearblue, production is stripped. As you might have guessed from the title, this song is about taking a pregnancy test. The first verse is sung in acapella with only layered vocals backing her up. This represents the thoughts spinning around her head in such an intense moment and also shows raw emotion and vulnerability from the singer; further entertaining the album’s transparent theme.
“After the ecstasy, testing for pregnancy, praying in MP3”. Unlike traditional prayer,
Lorde finds herself turning to music.
“I’ll try letting the answer be part of the dance as I trip and I stumble, Yeah, baby, I’m
free, I’m free, I’m free”. She is going to accept whatever outcome comes from the test. For once, she’s not an artist or public figure, just human. It’s raw, and uncharted territory as mentioned earlier she has just come off birth control after taking it since she was fifteen.
“There’s broken blood in me, it passed through my mother from her mother down to me”. This line suggests she inherited trauma from her mothers side, which is probably a thought that surfaced with the possibility of bringing another human into the world.
“Wish I’d kept the Clearblue, I’d remember how it feels to, be so bare in the throes” She wishes she kept the pregnancy test to remind her of how it was to feel truly alive. (This comes after Lorde got an IUD, which is intentionally displayed in the album cover).
-“GRWM”-
AKA Grown Woman, is the next track up. This song acknowledges where she is now in her life “A grown woman in a baby tee”. Since she was a kid, she has been trying to become the version of herself she is now. “Since ’96, been looking for a grown woman”, “2009 me’d be so impressed”. She is making her thirteen year old self proud and that’s a testament to her growth.
The title to this track is a play on the trend, “get ready with me” which gained popularity
in 2023, when Lorde started making this album. The trend entails showing your process in
getting ready and ending with a finished project.
“Wide hips, tooth chipped, ’96, skin scarred”, “Soft lips, my mama’s trauma”, similar to the trend, she lists some of her physical traits that she ‘Wears’. She is wearing all of these traits who make up who she is.
-“Broken Glass”-
This track reflects on a past version of herself that was deep in an eating disorder. “I spent my summer getting lost in math, making weight took all I had”. In this verse, she captures how consuming her disorder was, lost in the numerical labyrinth of counting calories and weight. “I wanna punch the mirror to make her see that this won’t last”. Having recovered from it, Lorde wishes she could help that version of herself a year ago.
“It might be months of bad luck, but what if it’s just broken glass?”. This line connects superstition to disordered eating. Instead of seven years of bad luck, is all of the possible outcomes to eating. It highlights the irrational thinking that comes with a disorder.
This track took bravery to put into the world, and I respect her a lot for that.
-“If She Could See Me Now”-
With the second to last track, we have an interpolation of Baby Bash’s, “Suga Suga”. “Got me lifted, feeling so gifted”. Although the millennial in her is inevitably seeping through in the intro of this song, the chorus is one of my favorite points in this album.
“It made me a woman, being hurt like that, I can feel, don’t need fantasy, oh, God, if she could see me now. This song shows Lorde in her current state, looking back at her prior self in a relationship. “Hope you find another starlet, another camera, another red carpet, as for me I’m going back to the clay.”. She is suggesting her past partner was exploiting her for fame. She’s discarding that version of herself and going back to her roots. This ties back to the theme of renovation and rebirth, and also a tie back to the Man Of The Year video where she is rolling around in dirt.
-“David”-
If the “1000 yard stare” was a song, it would be “David”. The title David is a reference to the biblical tale of David and Goliath. A story of a weaker and younger opponent defeating a powerful one. Lorde positions herself as David: young, vulnerable, and outmatched. This is alluding to her alleged relationship with Justin Warren, a music executive who was twelve years older. This song is her processing that relationship and the nature of that dynamic in hindsight. Giving this visual at the end of the album shows she was forced into this self renovation due to her ex partner’s actions.
“Was I just young blood to get on tape?”, “Pure heroine mistaken for featherweight”. She reflects on her fame at such an early age. In relationships and by the public she was underestimated, despite her emotional complexity and creative force.
“’Cause you dimed me out when it got hard, uppercut to the throat, I was off guard” She had so much trust in this figure that she couldn’t tell she was in a fight until she realized she was hit (using the boxing lyric as imagery for this). “Why do we run to thе ones we do?” acknowledging a pattern in her romantic partners.
“I made you God ’cause it was all that I knew how to do” a literal gut punch. She was “always making someone God,” She told Zane Lowe. This was her way of protecting herself from having to be the one who had the answers on what her life would be. It’s easy to make romantic partners a guiding light in your life, but when does it become codependency?
The song then reaches the climax of the entire album in which she cries out “But I don’t belong to anyone”. The production on this closing verse made me feel like I was levitating. But then suddenly I’m thrown to the floor with the devastating gravity of the outro in which she repeats “Am I ever gon’ love again?” with production stripped.
Listening to this entire album two days early with one of my best friends has become a core memory. Shoutout to Block Street Records for hosting an advanced listening event. Let’s hear it for the Man Of The Year.
Rating: 9.8/10
Top 3: “David”, “What Was That?”, “Man Of The Year”