Lorde released a new song, Stoned At The Nail Salon from her upcoming album Solar Power. Photo / Getty Images
Lorde released a new song, Stoned At The Nail Salon from her upcoming album Solar Power. Photo / Getty Images
Lorde released a new track Stoned At The Nail Salon, giving fans another taste of her upcoming album Solar Power.
The song is an introspective ballad, which lets fans into the mind of Lorde after her last album. In comparison to Solar Power, the new song is slow and more melancholy.
It isn't an upbeat song about being high while getting her nails done, it is, as Lorde puts it in her newsletter subject line about "dissociation whilst getting pedicures".
Here are five details about the song fans should know:
Lorde had her doubts about stepping away from the spotlight
"Got a wishbone drying in my kitchen / just in case I wake up and I realise I've chosen wrong," Lorde sings in the opening line of the track.
The second single from Solar Power reflects on her decision to take a break. She sings about questioning her decision, wondering if the world is passing her by why she isn't releasing new music.
Lorde working on her new music with Jack Antonoff. Photo / Lorde
The song is structured around her musings on going back to normal life, leading to the chorus:
"And all the times they will change, it'll all come around / I don't know / Maybe I'm just stoned at the nail salon / maybe I'm just stoned at the nail salon. "
In an email note to fans this morning, Lorde reflected on this theme in her new song.
"I've been trading the tour bus for the grocery store line over and over since I was sixteen (I'll probably do it forever), and a couple of years ago I realised it was time to write about those two sides to my life," she wrote."
She was burnt out after Melodrama
The singer felt like she needed a break after touring her last album, and wanted to retreat into a slower pace of life. The song was inspired by how she felt at this time.
"I started writing this in the first six months after stopping touring for Melo.
"I was so tired by the end, I'd been so busy for so long, and I remember at the end of that tour saying to people I knew 'I'm just going to go home and get bored' — because it had been two years since I had been at a loose end, bored out of my brain going from the couch to the fridge, and I was craving that."
Her adventures on her break included long lunches on Mondays with wine, and eating a slice of cake at 10am while taking a bath.
Lorde worried about fading from relevancy
Since Lorde last released music, there have been several young stars who have made it big - like Billie Eilish and Benee. And the song draws on this feeling of doubt and wanting to continue her momentum.
"I didn't have my finger firmly on the pulse for the first time in my life, and I could feel the next round of precocious teenagers starting to come up, and I felt insecure that they were gonna eat my lunch, so to speak.
"Was I over the hill?!! This song was borne out of that feeling."
But the lyrics of Stoned at the Nail Salon make it clear she knew slowing down was the right decision for her.
She worked on the song with Jack Antonoff
Lorde shared a selfie with collaborator Jack Antonoff and shared how the song came together.
"I brought the kernel for Jack's home studio on the same trip as Solar Power. I found this cute pic of us the day we were writing it," she wrote, sharing a selfie of them together.
Lorde will perform the new song live today
Lorde will perform Stoned at the Nail Salon today on the US talk show Late Night with Seth Meyers today alongside Antonoff.
She teased details about the performance:
"It's pretty cute that we're gonna perform this on Seth tonight the day it comes out, shoulder to shoulder two years and change to the day that we wrote it."
