Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor or Lorde made her big break at age 16 with her album Pure Heroine in 2013. Coming off this album, the lead single Royals was played across radio stations worldwide and you simply couldn’t escape it, taking home Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance at the Grammy’s. The song Ribs off the same album, especially resonated with teenage girls, including myself, in an emotional way, with them saying that the song captures the intensity, nostalgia and anxiety of their adolescence, in a way that very few songs have ever done.
Lorde then went on to release her next album Melodrama in 2017 which touches on the emotional highs and lows of young adulthood and then Solarpower in 2021 which reflects Lorde’s desire to step back from fame. After the release of Solarpower, Lorde expressed that she was uncertain on her future in music and claimed that she didn’t feel like she was being true to herself. This is why her recently released album, Virgin is extremely significant as it marks her personal transformation into her true self, after not thinking she would release an album again.
To put it frank, Virgin is Lorde stripped back to her rawest and most vulnerable form. Across the 14 tracks of the album, she delves into the topics of pregnancy scares, eating disorders, gender fluidity, the complexities of family relationships and the intimacy of simply being human. These themes are expressed throughout the tracks in a daring and different way to mainstream pop, utilising a more stripped back and synth-driven sound, that places a strong emphasis on Lorde’s vocals. Her voice carries the weight of the vulnerability of the lyrics, making the album feel intimate and confessional, something that I personally admire and often find myself looking for in music.
David, the last track, wraps up the album beautifully, and is one of my favourite songs off Virgin. It is an incredibly emotionally driven song, with themes around betrayal, manipulation and reflection of giving too much of yourself to someone. These themes are clearly depicted in lyrics throughout the song, specifically in:
“If I’d had virginity, I would have given that too”
and, the repetition of
"I don't belong to anyone" “Am I ever going to love again?”
paired with an almost haunting instrumental that leaves her voice exposed, making the listeners feel as though it is a late-night admission whispered in the dark. As she repeats the lyrics, the production glitches and warps, mirroring an emotional breakdown in a truly profound way, making listeners feel so much emotion, without saying much. The song then fades out, leaving the listeners in a static silence, depicting how vulnerability isn’t necessarily about closure, but about the uncertainty that follows, leaving the song feel unresolved and raw, a very fitting close for the album.
This song particularly resonated with me, and other listeners, as the song is left ambiguous, so it can easily be applied to listeners personal experiences and personally, I enjoy listening to songs even more when I feel like I can relate to it in some way, even if that isn’t in the same way that the artist does. I feel like this is a major part of why the song is so successful as people love to listen to music that evokes emotion out of them.
Another notable song from the album is Favourite Daughter, a deeply personal ballad about family, specifically Lorde’s relationship with her mother and the pressure she felt to perform (both literally and metaphorically) to be her mother’s and her fan’s ‘favourite daughter’. This is specifically depicted in:
“ ‘Cause I am an actress, all of the medals I won for ya”
“Panic attack just to be your favourite daughter”
and
“Breaking my back just to be as brave as my mother”
These lyrics not only address parental relationships, but also the burden that comes with trying to live up to someone else’s dreams that they have for you, and means that a vast majority of listeners can relate to the song, in one way or another, including myself.
The lyrics being paired with the build up from a more quiet and gentle production in the intro to increasing into a more urgent and layered sound helps create an emotional escalation and portrays someone trying to suppress their emotions until they can no longer. The emotional honesty of Favourite Daughter, as well as many others throughout Virgin is quite rare, especially in pop music and I really think that it is what Lorde does and knows how to do best.
David and Favourite Daughter only make up 1/7th of the album and each song has its own personal and emotional themes, each being as impactful as the last. I knew Lorde from her Pure Heroine era, and throughout Melodrama and Solarpower my interests wavered, but Virgin has really encapsulated what it is like to be a human and for me, listening to the album feels the same as reading through my diary, and I think that that is very beautiful and rare.
Caitlin 
Clara 
Kath Smart