Lorde burst into the music scene with her mega-hit “Royals” when she was only 16. Now, at 24, the New Zealand singer admits the new crop of teenage artists stepping into the limelight made her feel insecure.
In a new letter to fans, Lorde revealed what inspired her new single, “Stoned at the Nail Salon,” from her upcoming album Solar Power, due out August 20.
“I started writing this in the first six months after stopping touring for [Melodrama],” referring to her 2017 sophomore album. “I was so tired by the end, I’d been so busy for so long.”
Lorde recalled wanting to take a break after touring nonstop for two years, explaining how blissful it felt to “run a bath at 10am and eat a slice of cake in it.” However, the Grammy winner admits the vacation didn’t last long.
“But eventually, of course, the insecurity that this was my life now, that I wasn’t a titan of industry, but someone who just… cooked and walked the dog and gardened crept in,” Lorde confessed.
She continued, “I was starting to fall out of step with the times culturally, 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?!!”
“I know now that as hard as I try to run towards or away one of the sides of my life, they’re both very much who I am,” she said. “And writing this song was a real step toward embracing that.”
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