Lorde's new song 'What Was That?' is full of references to heartbreak and MDMA. Here's a close reading of the lyrics.

Business Insider

24-04-2025

On the heels of her impromptu pop-up in Washington Square Park on Tuesday, which drew a crowd so large it was shut down by the NYPD, Lorde officially launched her new era of music on Thursday with the brand-new single, "What Was That?"
The synth-pop song arrives nearly four years after Lorde's third album, " Solar Power," divided fans and critics with its bright acoustics and serene lyricism.
By contrast, "What Was That?" is fraught and jittery, like jolting awake from a dream. Cowritten by Lorde and Jim-E Stack and coproduced by the duo with Daniel Nigro — who made his name as a pop-star whisperer through his work with Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan — the song was evidently inspired by fresh heartbreak.
"Late 2023. Back in New York. Deep breakup," Lorde wrote on her website to accompany its release. "Stopping birth control. Every meal a battle. Flashbacks and waves. Feeling grief's vortex and letting it take me. Opening my mouth and recording what fell out… The sound of my rebirth."
Since Lorde's breakthrough 2013 hit "Royals," which she wrote when she was still a teenager, the now-28-year-old New Zealander has generally been social media-averse and tight-lipped about her personal life — so much so that the fact that she'd even been in a long-term relationship may have come as a surprise to many fans.
On "What Was That?", Lorde's guileless, introspective style of songwriting offers an avenue to trace her recent milestones and emotional arcs.
The song is teeming with references to her past work, real-life places, and drug-fueled flashbacks. Here's a close reading of the lyrics.
'What Was That?' was likely inspired by Justin Warren, a music executive who Lorde was rumored to be dating
Rumors began swirling in 2016 that Lorde was dating Justin Warren, a promotions director at Universal Music who is roughly 17 years her senior.
Though Warren denied reports of a romance at the time, the pair were photographed kissing on the streets of Auckland in 2020 and displaying more PDA in 2021.
Also in 2021, Lorde released the "Solar Power" track "The Man With the Axe," which was widely interpreted as an open letter to Warren. She described the ballad as "fragile, vulnerable," and "very private."
"I'm expressing a huge amount of love and affection for someone," she told Apple Music of the song. "I sort of don't even like thinking about people listening to it because it's just for me."
On September 20, 2023, Lorde seemed to announce their breakup in an email to fans.
"I'm living with heartbreak again. It's different but the same. I ache all the time, I forget why and then remember," she wrote in her newsletter. "I'm not trying to hide from the pain, I understand now that pain isn't something to hide from, that there's actually great beauty in moving with it. But sometimes I'm sick of being with myself."
This timeline would suggest that "What Was That?" was born in the wake of this breakup.
Neither Lorde nor Warren ever publicly confirmed their relationship, but he's the only person she has been romantically linked to since she split from her first serious boyfriend, James Lowe, in early 2016. (Lowe apparently served as the inspiration for Lorde's 2017 sophomore album, " Melodrama.")
The chorus of 'What Was That?' features a reference to MDMA, drawing a connection to 'Melodrama'
"MDMA in the back garden, blow our pupils up," Lorde sings. "We kissed for hours straight, well, baby, what was that?"
MDMA is an abbreviation for the drug commonly known as ecstasy, which was popularized in the 2010s as a party stimulant.
Lorde previously revealed that she was using MDMA while making "Melodrama," and the emotion that's most central to the album is "ecstasy." (By comparison, she said she associates her debut album, "Pure Heroine," with alcohol and her third album, "Solar Power," with cannabis.)
There are lyrical callbacks to songs like 'Girl, So Confusing' and 'Perfect Places'
"I wear smoke like a wedding veil / Make a meal I won't eat," Lorde sings in the first verse of "What Was That?"
The first line is likely a reference to smoking cigarettes, which Lorde makes explicit in the song's chorus. ("I remember saying then, 'This is the best cigarette of my life.'") Cigarettes have historically been marketed as appetite suppressants, which may help explain the second line in the couplet.
Moreover, Lorde has previously written about struggling with her body image and disordered eating habits, most notably for last year's "Girl, So Confusing" remix.
"'Cause for the last couple years / I've been at war with my body," Lorde sings in her verse of the Charli XCX track. "I tried to starve myself thinner / And then I gained all the weight back."
In the 2023 email to fans that revealed her recent heartbreak, Lorde also wrote about experiencing inflammation across her body and concerns about her gut health. She also admitted to comparing herself to "beautiful people" who post photos of themselves online with "arched backs and wet flower mouths."
"Everyone looks very thin. Just thinking that makes me feel tired and far away," she wrote.
Heartbreak has been known to cause physical symptoms like nausea and loss of appetite, in addition to psychological effects like self-doubt and stress.
"What Was That?" also recalls the hedonistic atmosphere of "Melodrama," which Lorde once described as "a record about being alone. The good parts and the bad parts." In particular, the album's closing track, "Perfect Places," paints Lorde as a frenzied teenager who parties to cope with loneliness and existential angst. ("I hate the headlines and the weather / I'm 19 and I'm on fire / But when we're dancing, I'm alright / It's just another graceless night.")
Similarly, the second verse of "What Was That?" depicts the author as a woman possessed by grief, even when she's surrounded by a glamorous crowd.
"Do you know you're still with me / When I'm out with my friends? / I stare at the painted faces / That talk current affairs," Lorde sings.
She also name-drops Baby's All Right, a small music venue in Brooklyn: "When I'm in the blue light, down at Baby's All Right / I face reality." In the song's outro, that lyric is tweaked to resemble her "Melodrama" philosophy more closely: "When I'm in the blue light, I can make it alright."
"What Was That?" also mirrors "Perfect Places" in its explicit reference to a formative age. Where Lorde once sang, "I'm 19 and I'm on fire," she now reflects on her bygone youth, dazed and indignant: "Since l was 17, I gave you everything / Now, we wake from a dream, well, baby, what was that?"
Dream logic is a recurring theme in Lorde's discography
Throughout her songwriting career — but especially in her debut album — Lorde has used dreams or dreaming as lyrical shorthand to illustrate encounters and experiences that feel surreal, shallow, doomed to end, or just beyond her reach.
Examples of this motif include "Royals" ("We don't care, we're driving Cadillacs in our dreams"), "400 Lux" ("Dreams of clean teeth"), "Ribs" ("This dream isn't feeling sweet"), "Buzzcut Season" ("All the girls with heads inside a dream"), "Team" (Living in ruins of a palace within my dreams"), "White Teeth Teens" ("You'll get the picture of your dreams"), and "Sober" ("When you dream with a fever / Bet you wish you could touch our rush").
More recently, in the "Solar Power" track "California," Lorde begs to be roused from the reverie of Hollywood, which she depicts as a fairytale-like world with lots of flattery and little substance ("It all just a dream / I wanna wake up, I wanna wake up").
Now, "What Was That?" depicts Lorde as finally getting her wish — and being forced to face the consequences of living in a fantasy for so long, of bending to her self-described "dreamer's disposition."