In his latest 'At Home With’ conversation on Apple Music 1, Zane Lowe is joined by Lorde who discusses some of her favourite songs, talks about environmental awareness, her new album, how she feels about her debut now, and much more.
Lorde Tells Apple Music How The Idea Of 'Wellness' Influenced Her New Album...
I definitely thought about wellness in many forms for this album. But this song is very much getting at the deep weirdness to it and the questionable elements of white women like me, trying to achieve a sense of spiritual oneness. Whether they're burning sage or palo santo or having this crystal around. There's a lot to it and I wanted to...It's literally big business.
Lorde Tells Apple Music About Her Contribution To Climate Change Awareness...
I mean, it's super tricky, being someone in my position, having influence, like it has. It's definitely something that I'm still building a relationship with because it's such a fine line to walk in terms of virtue signaling or actually making positive change or having positive impact. And I do struggle. And that was the thing with this album is I was really careful to say, "Look, I'm not a climate activist. I'm a pop star." I have this massive machine. I'm trying to symbolise my commitment to be better, environmentally. But the truth is, making anything new is bad for the planet. But I also think it's not up to me as a pop star to solve the climate crisis. I think my role is to be the one asking questions. I don't think I have to answer them.
Lorde Tells Apple Music What Her Debut Album Means To Her Now...
That album, to me, is just that mixture of toughness and cluelessness that you have at 15. I felt totally invincible and also totally uninformed, or very specifically informed by my existence up to that point, being a kid on the North Shore. But I don't know. Yeah. It's so cozy to me when I think about it. I listened to it recently, and I was like, "Man, just the feeling of being out after dark as a kid, waiting at some bus stop or being in someone's car, it was kind of exotic to be on your own and doing your own thing." And I remember so many pairs of off-brand headphones from the $2 shop, listening to music that I'd ripped off YouTube. You like what you like, and you sort of pull it towards yourself. But, yes. I was tough at that age. It's cool to think about baby E.
Lorde Tells Apple Music About How The Impact Of Her Music May Be Delayed...
I just feel with a song like this and an artist like Karen Dalton, that maybe even she was aware when she released it, that it might take 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years and one person at a time, to truly identify with how amazing she is. I wonder, yeah. Because she was a contemporary of Bob Dylan. It was his favourite artist. She's a Greenwich Village folk artist. There really is a universe where she became like Joni Mitchell but for whatever reason. And I love journeys like that. I think about it a lot. It's not always going to happen right at the time. I feel like my music is a little bit like that. Sometimes it takes a couple of years for people to be like, "Oh, okay. Yes, yes." And I love that. I have tons of things like that in my life where this album that I've been meaning to listen to for years. And then it finds me. And I'm like, "Oh my God, this was out there the whole time. And it was waiting for the right moment.
Lorde Tells Apple Music How Goodshirt Inspired Her...
So I grew up with this song and kind of didn't think too much about it. I always thought it was cool, but it was something I revisited in the last couple of years and just totally had that realisation of, oh, this would have been massive if this was an American song. It's super well-written. It's super simple, but it sounds awesome. And I feel like the sound of it, in some way, kind of influenced this album sound, just the sort of... I listened to a lot of stuff from that time that sounded sunshiny to me and had that sort of looseness. Something about the drum tone I really liked. But we will put this on at parties in New Zealand now, and everyone is down. The whole dance floor is screaming.
