Lorde saved me with Virgin

A personal review of Lorde’s most personal album yet

Naturally, as someone who grew up in suburbia in the 2010s, I am a fan of Lorde. Pure Heroine was the soundtrack to my high school experience. My friends and I would try to harmonize to “Royals” (try being the operative word), while I googled what Grey Goose was with my yellow iPhone 5c. Melodrama followed me into college, where “Liability” and “Writer in the Dark“ were practically made for me. This is not an uncommon feeling with Lorde— I think her music resonates with many people who may not feel heard otherwise in the pop zeitgeist. You know, us “mirrorball“ folk.

That is why Solar Power was a bit disappointing to me. I looked to Lorde to describe my pandemic experience, instead it was a very heady album. I still enjoyed it on my Hot Girl walks, but put it aside after the third listen-through.

So, Virgin. I had pretty high hopes; after all, Lorde was back (!) in Charli XCX’s “girl, so confusing.” She opened up about her gender expression. She released “What Was That,” a single that had my Tik Tok FYP deep-diving into her lore with Jack Antonoff as if it wasn’t almost ten years old. By all accounts, this seemed like it was going to be Lorde 2.0. Lorde in all her vulnerability.

And to be honest, she exceeded my expectations in Virgin. This album is all I’ve been able to consume for the past few days. It’s raw. It’s bare. It’s so fucking real. Lorde has learned that growing up doesn’t mean leaving childhood behind; it means taking it with you, reshaping it, and looking at it from all angles. The album is not nearly long enough, but with its brevity comes the chance to review every single morsel our Lorde has given us (see what I did there?)¹

Hammer

“I mighta been born again, I’m ready to feel like I don’t have the answers.”

Lorde opens the album telling us exactly where she is. Yes, sometimes she’s a woman, sometimes she’s a man. She wants aura readings to tell her who she is. She doesn’t know if it’s love or ovulation (again, real). But I latch onto the more figurative phrases here. The namesake of the song:

When you’re holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail

This song is about opportunity for reinvention just as much as the reinvention itself. The hammer is the power; it’s the key. The nail is the lock. She’s making an offer, as if to say, “I know this isn’t your thing, but I think we have a chance here to make something real. We may not have the answers, but who cares?”

She’s “sending us a postcard from the edge.” Let’s jump in.

What Was That

“I didn’t know then that you’d never be enough.”

Truer lyrics have never been spoken for any 17 year old in love, ever. (Or maybe I’m projecting?)

Virgin, as a whole, swims in and out of themes; it dunks our head under water, then shows us the sunlight against the waves. In “Hammer,” we were jumping into the water. Now, we are wading into the deep as Lorde sings about idealization and love, how the two intertwine and how they haunt. The person and their past together follows her everywhere she goes. She tries to process this ghost through quasi-meditative speak:

I try to let whatever has to pass through me pass through

But this is staying a while, I know

It might not let me go

The ghost has a hold on her, not the other way around. There’s a power imbalance in that phrasing, a sort of desperation to move on.

Shapeshifter

“I become her again, visions of a teenage innocence.”

This is a great follow-up track to “What Was That?,” a song all about putting someone on the pedestal. Here, Lorde herself is the idea. Our head is above the water; we’re taking in gulps of these lyrics. This song feels like the older, self-actualized sister of “Liability”:

The truth is I am a toy that people enjoy

'Til all of the tricks don't work anymore

And then they are bored of me

In “Liability,” Lorde exclaims she is too much for people. In “Shapeshifter,” she responds to that fear; she will diminish her feelings for the sake of avoiding heartbreak from being too much. This is one of the most relatable songs on the album to me. Like Lorde, I am 28 years old and have been going through some shit (lol). I got married, and have been grappling with what it means to be a wife vs a girlfriend. I have lost a loved one; someone who instilled some triggering buttons in me. I have been hurt by people I trusted. I have also built new friendships in the wake of my pain, and even in these friendships sometimes doubt my own authenticity. I am so keenly aware of my own chameleon-like abilities. What does it even mean to be myself? To let go?

I’ve been the fruit that leaves a stain

I’ve been up on the pedestal

But tonight I just wanna fall

Regarding authenticity, I do think Lorde hints at her gender expression:

Mirror, mirror, on his shirt

I see a hot mess in an antique skirt

But the voice in my head says

Don’t leave him alone

She sees the man she could be, and doesn’t want to leave him. But then in the following lyrics, she says she is back to being “visions of a teenage innocence.” Again, she can’t run from her past self— it’s part of her.

Man of the Year

“I didn’t think he’d appear.”

This song says a lot without overexplanation. I think it perplexed me as a single, especially because she has been vocal in the press about her gender expression. With lyrics like “sometimes I’m a woman, sometimes I’m a man” in “Hammer,” this song feels less like hammer and nail, more like feather and body.

Who’s gon love me like this?

Who could give me lightness?

Way he flow through me

What strikes me most is the emotion in Lorde’s voice. I can hear the yearn-like questioning. This is a love song to herself and the new way of seeing her body and soul. She didn’t think he’d appear, but it sounds like she is glad he did.

Favourite Daughter

“I tell myself that soon we’ll talk, then I sing every word just to ya.”

This is one of my favorite tracks on Virgin, and the one that makes me stare at a wall for twenty minutes in contemplation. This song dives into parental expectations, and the connection between love and success. Even the title, “Favorite Daughter,” harkens back to childhood wishes and sibling rivalries.

There is only a certain amount of closeness one can attain with a parent, however close that relationship is. I don’t hear many songs that breach this subject, and I relish in its honesty:

And for every door you open

There’s a room I can’t go in

I break in, I still can’t find you

While Lorde wants to be the favorite daughter, those familial expectations are complex. Beyond encouragement (“you were my fan when no one gave a damn”), the lyrics describe her parents living through her success:

I’m a good actress, look at the medals I won for ya

So you could imagine bein’ a favorite daughter

Everywhere I run, I’m always runnin‘ to ya

Breakin’ my back just to be as brave as my mother

This song is a wail. Here, I imagine Lorde is holding hands with her childhood self. That’s what I’m doing anyway.

Current Affairs

“Mama, I’m so scared. Were you ever like this once you went out on the edge?”

We’re back in the blue that Lorde talks about in “Shapeshifter.” In “Current Affairs,” we are dunked under the water.

He spit in my mouth like

He’s saying a prayer

But now I’m crying on the phone

Swearing nothing’s wrong

Blame it on current affairs

She calls out “mama,” an interesting follow up to “Favorite Daughter.” It feels like Lorde is reaching for a memory she can’t quite place. The modulated voice between the chorus and verse is the ghost— it haunts Lorde as she speaks to this experience.

Clearblue

“I’m nobody’s daughter, yeah baby, I’m free, I’m free”

If our heads are dunked under water, this is the song where we stop flailing and just let ourselves sink in. It’s ephemeral and ethereal. Although sex is mentioned, this song in particular is less about sexual acceptance, and more about body acceptance to me. Not acceptance of body image, per se, but a deeper acknowledgment of the genes that have created her.

Lips round your halo

You asked where I came from,

I lied and then I came clean

There’s broken blood in me it passed through my mother

From her mother down to me

I find this song relatable because I think it is about negotiating what “freedom” looks like when you are close to someone. She says she’s “nobody’s daughter,” but then feels someone changing her patterns. She feels free when she is alone, but she feels alive when she is having sex— and which feeling is better?

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

GRWM

”Maybe you finally know who you wanna be”

We’re coming up for air on this track. Back to the childhood theme, Lorde is looking for herself:

Pink galaxy left undressed

2009 me’d be so impressed

Back when stolen spirits went straight to the head

Maybe you finally know who you wanna be

A grown woman in a baby tee

I think this song is sweet, and a nice breather before the last few tracks.

Broken Glass

“Lettin’ her treat me like that, I think that it’s love”

Lorde speaks candidly about her body image struggles in this song by listing the ways she struggled trying to lose weight in order to love her body. We can see it as a sort of follow-up to “girl, so confusing:”

Cause for the last couple years

I've been at war in my body

I tried to starve myself thinner

And then I gained all the weight back

Felt great to strip

New waist to hip

I hate to admit

Just how much I paid for it

While “Broken Glass” speaks to Lorde’s eating disorder, I think it is relatable in different ways. In the chorus, I hear someone struggling to see past their own thoughts:

I wanna punch the mirror

To make her see that this won’t last

It might be months of bad luck

But what if it’s just broken glass?

As someone who tends to ruminate, I feel I am at battle with my feelings versus my thoughts. I know shattered pieces are just that, but sometimes my feelings build them up to be more. I feel relief in listening to this song, and understanding that sometimes what I see isn’t actually how it is.

If She Could See Me Now

“As for me, I’m going back to the clay.”

Back to the water metaphor— here, we are escaping the ocean with water still up our noses. I can feel the power in Lorde’s voice here. Instead of running from her past selves like in ”What Was That?” or “Shapeshifter,” she accepts that her old self is part of her.

Whenever you’d break me

I’d watch it happen, like an angel looking down

It made me a woman, being hurt like that

I can feel, don’t need the fantasy

Oh God, if she could see me now

This is what I find so relatable about this entire album— Lorde’s reclamation of her various selves, and how they are all just her. In having such a crazy few years myself (getting married, starting a new job, grieving death of a loved one), I have a deep and visceral sense that the self is just a constantly evolving definition dependent on current experience (maybe that’s the ego death Lorde talks about in “Hammer”…) In “If She Could See Me Now,” I think Lorde is talking about herself. She doesn’t need the fantasy. She doesn’t need the blue light. If only her past self could see how far she has come.

David

“Why do we run to the ones we do?”

We are out of the ocean, back in the car and driving home at sunset. Revisiting the childlike idealization themes of “What Was That?” and even “Favorite Daughter,” Lorde sings some of her most raw lyrics on the album:

I made you God cause it was

all that I knew how to do

This song cracks open my heart, because I feel it so deeply for my teen self. I’ve built fantasies in my head and attributed them to real people, not understanding that they were just an idea of my own creation. I am back to holding hands with my childhood self. But it’s what Lorde sings next that gets me:

But I don’t belong to anyone

Am I ever gon love again?

A question, but maybe also a mantra. I don’t hear sadness in these lyrics. Instead, maybe a resignation of a past that finally met up with her. Or, more like a past that Lorde is finally ready to meet.

There are little hints there to her personal life (“pure heroine mistaken for featherweight”), but I am not interested in the actual details of Lorde’s past. I am too busy looking at my own past when I listen to this song. For a final track, Lorde leaves us with the sand all over our front seat, remnants of the trip we can’t undo— even if we wanted to. But why would we want to?

It’s a beautiful life, so why play truant?

I jerk tears and they pay me to do it

- “Hammer”

Thank you for reading this lengthy review! This album is really cathartic for me. As I near my thirties, sometimes I fear I have “outgrown” pop music since I don’t find it as relatable anymore. I know that is ridiculous, but Virgin really makes me feel seen and understood. I would love to know your thoughts on this album, and if you have any other albums you’d like me to review.

A water color painting I did while listening to this album for the first time :’)

Bye!

Helen

1. This review is my own personal opinion and interpretation! To each their own- just wanted to dive into some of my favorite music lately.