Laila Abuelhawa
November 6th, 2021
Lorde, born Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor, celebrates her 26th birthday today. In honor of the “Solar Power” singer’s big day, we have ranked the talented New Zealand singer-songwriter’s best songs from her last three albums.
"Stoned at the Nail Salon" is a folk ballad where Lorde reflects about growing older and the passage of time. Lorde said of the song as a "rumination on getting older, settling into domesticity, and questioning if you’ve made the right decisions."
Lorde says of her many mentions of teeth in Pure Heroine as "just a weird obsession that has been with me always. Ironically, I hate dentists."
Her first released song by her album of the same name, "Solar Power" showed us a Lorde we've never seen before. Singing about that infectious, flirtatious summer energy that takes hold of us all.
“Buzzcut Season” is rooted in Lorde’s memories of past summers, referring to buzzcuts her friends used to give each other at the beginning of summer while they were young. The song comments heavily on a slowly disappearing innocence as the song’s teenagers awaken to a darker world filled with war and violence.
"Glory and Gore"is about our society's obsession and delight with how celebrities are shown in media, revealing their failures rather their successes.
In “Supercut”, Lorde dreams of an idealized relationship and looks back on the positive parts of a relationship, but realizes that it's all a delusion.
“Green Light” is about Lorde’s first major heartbreak and is “the first chapter of the last two wild, fluorescent years” of the New Zealander's life before the song dropped.
Off of her sophomore album, "Liability" is just Lorde's vocals and a piano throughout the entire track. This mournful ballad finds the singer musing over why her relationships don't last.
Despite the track's title, Lorde doesn't actually play tennis. "I've always been really fascinated by the visual concept of the tennis court," she said. "That was just a symbol that felt kind of nostalgic to me."
“Ribs” is an ethereal lament about adolescence, and the bittersweet experience of growing up captured in Lorde's smoky voice.
This bittersweet, dreamy track came from a dream Lorde had about teenagers in their own world, "a world with hierarchies and initiations, where the boy who was second in command had acne on his face, and so did the girl who was queen."
Taking the #1 spot has to be "Royals." It's the song that skyrocketed her career in the music industry, and this song truly never gets old.
