my life, soundtracked by lorde

ella yelich-o'connor, i'd lay down my life for you

Jul 03, 2025

hi darlings,

i don’t remember the first time lorde’s voice graced my ears.

i wish i could say i did: to be able pinpoint the precise moment she entered my life. but, to be honest with you, that’s probably because i don’t remember life without her voice soundtracking my life.

i think many people in my generation feel the same way, but it felt like lorde and i shared mirror experiences, our lives following similar curves. is that what happens when you’re a similar age as an artist, or is that simply the power of lorde i wasn’t able to see, or communicate, when “melodrama” first released?

lorde appears in my earliest spotify playlist, aptly titled “party 2014,” which i made for my sixteenth birthday party. can you guess the song? her first hit, the song that took radio stations and indie teens by storm? that could fit a party atmosphere and allow my friends and i to sing along? oh, it had to be “royals.”

pure heroine (2013) dropped in early september of my sophomore year of high school. i had recently come into a new body post-puberty and didn’t know how to operate in it. i hoped i wouldn’t have such acute awareness of every motion now that i was smaller, but i still did. i was socially anxious, although i never verbalized it that way. i could take command at school, but in a social setting? i was the awkward girl trying to present herself as chill. i was listening to a healthy diet of the 1975, beyoncé, one direction, rihanna, and two door cinema club. what a mix, lol. but that meant i was coming into my indie and alternative sensibilities, with the help of my best friend amanda, and her cool, artistic older sister, erica. lorde struck at the perfect time. she had long, dark, curly hair like mine was shifting into from my previously stick-straight hair. lorde spoke about her social anxiety and economic inequality in suburbia, two things that affected the way i presented myself.

how did this teenager on the other side of the world feel the same way i did? and could verbalize these feelings that overtook me in such a poetic way?

it might’ve been the first time i could pinpoint myself in lyrics, specifically in “ribs”. i finally felt like i was growing up, something i wanted so badly for so long. (which is so, so silly to look back on now, over a decade later, that growing up is such a desired thing.) but why didn’t it feel natural? why didn’t i feel free, or like the person i was destined to be? that oppressive awkwardness still carrying itself in my body. why did my limbs and extremity feel so wrong?

i will never be able to aptly thank lorde for her poetry in “ribs” that struck me hard then, and still strikes me just as hard now. lorde has always been a master with her pen.

i love how melancholic her perspective is throughout the album, especially in “buzzcut season” and “white teeth teens.” i committed the lyrics to memory at an early age, and they’re still up there, ready to be released whenever i play the album.

*melodrama*, as well as me + my friend from the tour

melodrama (2017) hit me like a tsunami, it was the definitive album of my summer in 2017. the sound of melodrama was drastically different from that of pure heroine, its minimalist sounds now traded for synths and electronic beats. the album dropped at the end of my debaucherous freshman year of college, which was also a few weeks after my first relationship ended. i felt heartbroken, but simultaneously free — a funny juxtaposition that was very new to me. although “green light” had been released as the first single off the album in march of the same year, it hit way harder once the record dropped wholly.

while pure heroine was about growing up, melodrama began the discussion of what early adulthood feels like. i started to feel like an adult for the first time, away from my family at university and making my own schedule and decisions.

the album is full of potential, full of modern sounds and timeless feelings. it makes sense i was drawn to it immediately: many of her influences for the album are favorites of mine, like joni mitchell and paul simon (“graceland is enlightenment after love lost,” nme.) the deaths of prince and david bowie, both in early 2016, also played a major part in the feel of the record.

my friends and i went feral for melodrama, it felt like we had it on 24/7. i remember pregaming to “supercut,” jumping up and down on the linoleum flooring in our dorm kitchen. when the “homemade dynamite” remix dropped, with features from khalid, post malone, and sza, it felt like a meeting of the minds. “buT wHo cARES stiLL the LOUVRE!!!” was a constant phrase we repeated to each other again, and again, and again. the record coming to its conclusion with “perfect places” struck us — its the euphoria of a night out settling into dawn over the light piano and vocals. my friend & i saw her live at staples center in march 2018, throwing our bodies around and screaming our lungs out.

listening to the album now transports me back to early college immediately, and i love having that ability to get back into that state of mind.

*solar power*, my film shots from her tour at the shrine

solar power (2021) is lorde’s sun-kissed third album, dropping again in the late summer just like melodrama. the record begins with her track “the path,” and the sound sets the tone. when she sings “now if you're looking for a saviour, well, that's not me / you need someone to take your pain for you? / well, that's not me,” i felt her sense of waywardness and hoping to be reinvigorated and rejuvenated by the sun.

while many friends found it a disappointment after the unbridled force of melodrama, the album went platinum in my headphones that summer and fall.

“secrets from a girl (who’s seen it all)” meant so much to me from the first listen. she sings “couldn’t wait to turn fifteen, then you blink and it’s been ten years” and it brought me straight back to “ribs.” in that moment, i recognized i had grown up with her. she later sings “‘member what you thought was grief before you got the call?” and WOOOOOOOF, that lyric continues to bulldoze me. i find myself returning to the song routinely not only for its light and breezy feel in the music, but also for the contemplative verses.

i’d be remiss to not mention “stoned at the nail salon” and the line that lives rent free in my head: “spend all the evenings you can with the people who raised you / 'cause all the times they will change, it'll all come around.” if i ever want to intentionally make myself tear up, almost on command, i know i can go to this track.

similar to the excellent placement of “perfect places” as the final track on melodrama, “oceanic feeling” encapsulates the entire message put out by the album. the song is about being connected to the universe, the circle of life, and returning to your roots. in the fourth verse she sings “in the future / if i have a daughter / will she have my waist / or my widow's peak? / my dreamer's disposition or my wicked streak?” womanhood is tied so intrinsically to our reproductive abilities, i find it fascinating listening to her process these thoughts and emotions in her mid-twenties. will she pass down solely genetic traits, or will she also pass down her mentality, her personality? how much of ourselves are given to us by our parents? i was thinking about a lot of the same things as my mom was in the worst of her autoimmune disease, questioning if i will have it myself, or if i will pass it down if i choose to have children. it feels special sharing brain waves with a favorite artist of mine. lorde goes on to discuss her own relationship with her mother further in virgin.

my friend tyler invited me to lorde’s show at the shrine auditorium in may 2022. tyler has incredible luck buying concert tickets, and our tickets were in the pit. if you haven’t been to the shrine, the pit is very small and you’re guaranteed to be up close with the artist.

remi wolf was the opener, putting on a stunning show and really getting us ready to see lorde. and seeing lorde that up close…in short, i was gagged! her vocals sounded angelic, we were in awe of her talent firsthand. she gave so much of herself during that performance, and i felt very lucky to be there—and up close—for an album that touched me so deeply. this remains one of the best concerts i’ve ever been to.

lorde’s newest album, virgin (2025), dropped late last thursday night in pacific time, and i listened to it on a drive home from a friend’s apartment. i was shocked seeing that i’d be able to finish it before i arrived home, the album’s length coming in slightly under 35 minutes.

the record is about an open conversation on gender and sexual fluidity, parental expectations, and further questions about fame. it begins with “hammer” where she expresses “don't know if it's love or if it's ovulation” — immediately shifting the audience into the meditative mindset. are these strong emotions real love, or just how my hormones are affecting me today? she continues on with “what was that,” the first single released from the album. she told us the track “constituted her rebirth” on a voice memo over text. the song is a reflective exploration, another track discussing a breakup over electronic, pulsing beats, and i loved it.

my favorite song off the record is “shapeshifter.” it stopped me in my tracks, and even though it was only the first listen, i felt touched. she speaks abstractly about the ways she’s changed herself in relationships, trying to outrun losing the person but ultimately losing parts of herself. this is her saying she won’t do that anymore, she can contain multitudes and complexities: “tonight i just want to fall.” i think “shapeshifter” and muna’s “anything but me” could be a captivating study on the different ways we conduct ourselves in relationships, either with a willingness or reluctance to lose yourself. this is an early draft of a thought, and i’ll need to listen to them more together, but i’m excited to dive deeper.

lorde speaks on her complicated relationship with her mother in a myriad of the tracks: “favourite daughter,” “clearblue,” “grwm,” and “current affairs.” there’s an element of codependency lorde hints at — the ways she deeply wants and yearns for her mother’s respect, but also her anger towards her for putting her in a position to repeat patterns of generational trauma.

while it’s only been a week and i’ve got a handful of listens under my belt, virgin feels more mature with the ideas of remaking yourself in your mid-to-late 20s. that sounds oh-so-familiar to me.

and, like my entire life so far has been soundtracked by lorde, it feels good to not be alone.