By Grace Koennecke, Managing Editor

Lorde is an artist that has been at the forefront of my teenage years, and now my 20s. She has always been someone I listen to when I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed with the daily experiences of being young. Whether it’s feeling misunderstood, heartbroken, lonely or frustrated, the New Zealand singer-songwriter’s relatability has been able to transcend overtime, not just for me, but for countless fans around the world.

For my love letter this week, I thought it would be fitting to write about my favorite album of Lorde’s, 2017’s Melodrama. As I near graduation and all of the emotions that come with it, this album for me feels like a warm hug amidst a time of uncertainty, fear, and of course, anxiety. However, it is also an exciting and hopeful time, as I’m curious about where I’ll end up in the world in just a few short months and eager to move into a new chapter of my life.

Melodrama is the album for this predicament of mine, and for many others, and even though it’s been out for eight years now, it still is an extremely important body of work for Lorde and her fanbase.

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The album was written when Lorde was only 19, which is insane to think about when you examine each song’s lyricism and themes. It’s pretty clear that the singer is grappling with growing older, a sentiment found heavily in 2013’s Pure Heroine, but also with the destruction of her personal relationships. While Pure Heroine centers around the teenage experience, Melodrama centers around change, particularly with the changes everyone experiences in their 20s.

Change is a major theme in the first track “Green Light,” a song that focuses heavily on the hardships of moving on from a breakup. Bitter and angry, Lorde’s vocals sting in the opening lines – “I do my makeup in somebody else’s car / We order different drinks at the same bars / I know about what you did and I wanna scream the truth / She thinks you love the beach, you’re such a damn liar” – and her take on the breakup is pretty scathing. However, the chorus of the song reveals her opposing feelings of remorse and longing, as she says, “But honey, I’ll be seein’ you ‘ever I go / But honey, I’ll be seein’ you down every road / I’m waiting for it, that green light, I want it / ‘Cause honey, I’ll come get my things, but I can’t let go.”

“Sober” is the next track on the album that revolves around making bad decisions under the influence, especially in your early 20s. Lorde talks about the anxiety that comes with being sober the morning after an impulsive night, and her embarrassment clear in lines such as, “Ain’t a pill that could touch our rush / (But what will we do when we’re sober?) / Uh, when you dream with a fever / Bet you wish you could touch our rush / (But what will we do when we’re sober?).” Anyone who has ever felt like this knows the rush of going out and being in the moment followed by the crash and fall of the next day, and Lorde really embraces that on this track.

Another song I love from Melodrama is “The Louvre,” which is more focused on moving on and finding interest in someone new. The exhilarating feeling of lust is at the forefront of this song as Lorde sings about falling in love again: “Our thing progresses, I call and you come through / Blow all my friendships to sit in hell with you / But we’re the greatest, they’ll hang us in the Louvre / Down the back, but who cares? Still the Louvre.” It’s honestly just a really wholesome moment on the album compared to how dark and gloomy its companions are, and the giddiness of new love is refreshing.

The dark and gloominess of this record is most heard on “Liability,” where Lorde admits to feeling like a burden amongst her friends, family and lovers. With just a backing piano and her voice, the singer sounds defeated and frustrated, letting her insecurities get the best of her as she wonders why people seem to avoid being with her. She sings, “Baby really hurt me, crying in the taxi / He don’t wanna know me / Says he made the big mistake of dancing in my storm / Says it was poison,” proving how deeply personal this track is. To this day, it’s still one of Lorde’s most heartbreaking songs, again creating a universal ballad about the ups and downs of being a woman in your 20s.

“Hard Feelings/Loveless” is another track that I return to every time I put Melodrama on because of how beautiful the lyrics are, as well as for how experimental it is. Basically, Lorde mashes these two songs together, with the first being about the memories she once experienced with a lover. She says, “But I still remember everything / How we’d drift buying groceries, how you’d dance for me / I’ll start letting go of little things / ‘Til I’m so far away from you, far away from you, yeah,” and the hurt in her voice is what still haunts me now on every listen. 

The second part of the song has the same upbeatness found in “Green Light” and “Homemade Dynamite,” but feels like Lorde is teasing her ex-lover that she was singing about in “Hard Feelings.” Lyrics like, “Bet you wanna rip my heart out / Bet you wanna skip my calls now / Well, guess what? I’d like that / ‘Cause I’m gonna mess your life up / Gonna wanna tape my mouth shut / Look out, lovers,” and it seems that Lorde is falling out of love after not being able to reconcile with this person.

If you haven’t heard “Supercut” on TikTok by now, the song has become a cult classic in Lorde’s discography for its fast-paced chorus. Seeing this song live a few years ago was one of my all-time favorite concert experiences, and the emotional weight of this song is another sign that Lorde knows how to capture the attention of her listeners when talking about heartbreak. The writing is on a whole different level in this song and proved at the time that Lorde was a masterful songwriter. It’s so true in lyrics like, “In your car, the radio up / We keep trying to talk about us / I’m someone you maybe might love” and “‘Cause in my head (In my head I do everything right) / When you call (When you call, I’ll forgive and not fight).” They’re so poetic and symbolic of the anxiety that comes with being on the verge of losing someone.

Towards the end of Melodrama, Lorde embraces the melodrama herself with “Sober II (Melodrama)” and “Liability (Reprise),” two songs that are theatrical in nature but slow down the album to allow you to take in all of the emotions within it. The first track is what follows the storyline in “Sober,” with Lorde taking in everything after a night of partying: “Lights are on and they’ve gone home, but who am I? / Oh, how fast the evening passes / Cleaning up the champagne glasses / We told you this was melodrama.” Meanwhile, “Liability (Reprise)” is a holistic reflection on youth and making mistakes, with the singer reminding herself that she’s not a failure or a burden: “But you’re not what you thought you were.”

Lastly, one of the best moments on this album is in its final track, “Perfect Places.” I’m a huge fan of this song because its message is simply timeless: The things in youth that are hyped up to be euphoric and great – partying, drugs, alcohol, sex – really aren’t. She sings, “All the nights spent off our faces / Trying to find these perfect places / What the f*ck are perfect places, anyways?” and this sentiment finishes off the album to remind listeners not to take things so seriously and to live authentically.

Melodrama by Lorde is an album for me that I relate to as a 22-year-old waiting for the next big thing, but also as the younger versions of myself that once yearned to fit in and be loved. It’s an album that has a lot of emotional weight, but once you understand it, it stays with you in ways you don’t expect. For someone who feels emotions strongly and impulsively at times, I think Lorde is the same in that sense, and it’s nice to find comfort in her music for that reason, especially on this album.

Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/album/2B87zXm9bOWvAJdkJBTpzF?si=r8OIvt4LRKKNrgp1GxAQOg