After a silence filled with inner searching and psychedelic impulses, Lorde sits down with Zane Lowe to release the weight of the years and open the doors of Virgin, her fourth studio album. In a raw and luminous conversation, the New Zealand artist dissects the foundations of her new music, the ghosts of teenage fame, and the moment when everything was about to fall apart.
“Hammer” was born from a post-contraceptive hormonal explosion and an almost mystical walk through New York; “Favorite Daughter” from the luminous wound of wanting to be loved by a mother and by the world. Lorde speaks of hunger—physical and spiritual—of leaving relationships, and of reconnecting with feminine power through collaboration with other women. The artist finally recognizes herself as the public figure she once tried to deny.
Zane Lowe (ZL) – How did the song “Hammer” come about?
Lorde (L) – It was actually late 2023. We wrote a version. I had just gotten off birth control, and I couldn’t believe how I felt. It was all pure possibility. I felt like I was tapping into that kind of energy source, and it was crazy. I was in New York, walking around, and it was amazing. It was great. It was the spring of ’24 when we did it; we put it aside; we didn’t think it was going to be on the record. Jimmy teamed up with Buddy Ross, who’s done a ton of different things.
Jimmy did that version. He played it to me on FaceTime, and I was like, “Ham’s back, he’s back on the album.” And from there, I felt like it was kind of a really cool piece of the project… I tried to keep it as raw and pure as possible. Buddy’s sounds are so earthy, and there’s such a purity to them that they’re unmistakably machine-made, but there’s also something about that first sound on the track “Hammer” that seems to be coming from a very guttural place in a body. My sister said, “It sounds like it’s coming from your belly.”
(ZL) – How did the song “Favorite Daughter” come about?
(L) – “Favorite Daughter” is interesting. I think almost every song on this album, if it’s addressed to someone, is a compilation of people and moments that have made me feel something. That song is about my relationship with my mother, who is the reason I do everything I do; she’s my role model. But when I say, “All the medals I’ve earned for breaking my back to be your favorite daughter,” I feel like I’m also singing to the audience.
There’s been this dynamic for the last 10, 12 years and more, of wanting to be loved and getting that approval and being the favorite. And it was really touching to me how, even when I was singing that song about my biggest idol and the person I think is the most amazing person in the world, I was also singing about how crazy it is to have what happened to me at 16, suddenly hopping on a plane and then another one from one show to the next…
(ZL) – What was the pivotal moment when you rethink your career?
(L) – I think it was sometime around late 2022, early 2023, all those different things converged, those things that I had been building to, I suddenly felt like my whole adult life. I had this profound moment of existential re-evaluation of my role. I was like, why am I in this role? What is the way that I want to be that is good and healthy for me? Because I tasted that refusal on Solar Power, and something was missing. It felt like those songs were touching my skin and not engaging my gut. I was like, “This is not the best place in your life that you’re in.”
I had a devastating problem with food and my body up until 2022. There was a lot of that in Solar Power, actually. I was so hungry. I’m lucky that I was able to deal with that. But, it felt like a breaking point. I remember waking up one day and being like, “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t go to bed thinking about everything I ate during the day and waking up worrying about all the crap I’m going to eat.”
(ZL) – It’s a mental prison. It’s the height of torture.
(L) – It completely robbed me of all my life force and creativity. The most boring time of my life. And then, I felt like I was 25 and I was like, “Wait. There’s always been someone who was my God. I’ve always chosen someone. It was my parents.” Like a lot of people do. And then, I would put one person, another person, another person, usually men, but not always. And that was what I was doing to protect myself, looking for someone who had the answers about what my life was meant to be. I really felt at the beginning of 2023 that I needed to cut a lot of cords, be on my own, see what I could grow in myself to be able to be in my life the way I need to be..
It was hard. I got out of my relationship and made some big changes in general. I went to London to try to meet people to work with. I started working with Fabiana; working with a woman was truly amazing and restorative. So I spent a year trying to find a more sustainable connection to the power within me…
(ZL) – You became famous at a very young age, how has your fame changed from then until now?
(L) – I think for a long time I’ve tried to be very dual about it. When I’m in the studio or in the States, I’m an artist. When I come home to New Zealand, I’m not an artist and I turn that part of me off. Obviously, sometimes it’s impossible. With Solar Power, I was trying to go all the way. It didn’t feel very good. Now I’ve realized that you have to find the purest version of yourself, and the purest version of me is famous all over the world. It’s just that maybe you’re in a garden experiencing an ego death in the middle of the night with a dose of heroics. It definitely makes sense because the most complex part of this album is that I took very psychedelic paths to get here and be able to achieve it.
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