Whining & Dining #9: No Really What Was That? What Lorde Taught Me About Letting Go

WHINING & DINING | COLUMN | PUORO O AOTEAROA / LOCAL MUSIC

Written by Elle Daji (she/her) | @elleelleelleelle_ | Contributing Columnist

Like most, I have been awaiting our Lorde's return. My Sunday Service is loyally rotating through Pure Heroine, Melodrama and Solar Power, praying for the next album. And finally, we have a taster, the soundtrack of the next stage of our lives. After being edged by vague Instagram stories, Lorde released “What Was That” - an electro-pop track sonically echoing Melodrama, a stark contrast to the cicada-filled hums of Solar Power. The visual component to the single release is a frenetic, at times disorientating montage of Lorde strutting, cycling and littering (shout out to the Apple Headphones) through New York City, interspersed between close-ups of Lorde's tonsils and her rolling around in a bikini that oddly reminds me of the rainbow caused by petrol spills. 

I have an intensely personal relationship with Lorde’s music Many of my favourite songs are attached to consequential moments in my life. But for my friends and I, Lorde is more than just a musician; she's our oracle. Being at an age which puts her in the next stage of life, her work has lit the path from adolescence to adulthood. Her words often comfort me like an older sister. But What Was That marks a change; Lorde is no longer prophesying what's to come; she is just like us. We caught up with her. 

In the new single, Lorde spends her time in bars, unpresent and on a date she had two years ago, instead of getting lost in the moment with her friends. She plays back the supercut of her last relationship; old habits die hard, apparently. Despite knowing that it ended for a good reason, Lorde fondly recounts that period with indigo-tinted glasses. The exhilarating high of the best cigarette she's had and MDMA in the backyard she's yet to replicate. Despite the benefit of hindsight, she still misses those moments.

‘What Was That’ has got me thinking about the relationships we let linger longer than they're welcome. The track juxtaposes her current life's stoic and solitary nature with Lorde's past. It describes the people and memories that never seem to leave you alone. Which come out and haunt you when you're going about the mundanities of life. For example, whilst sauntering through the streets and getting Washington Square Park shut down by police during a surprise performance, as we all do occasionally. Lorde is resolved that the relationship is dead, yet still she misses the other person. It made me question how long that period lasts. Weeks? Months? In my case, it's been years. 

I often find myself struggling to answer that question, leading me to believe that maybe it doesn't have an answer. Memories will continue to live on with us, despite change - we just have to learn to cohabitate with them. Living in one place my whole life, the city is littered with locations that serve as reminders of my past. Instead of a simple cafe or park, I see the places where I fell in and out of love. This means that getting over someone includes having the ability to live with that history, the good and the bad, whilst not being held back. 

I don't think I have any advice on preventing the habit of being stuck in the past. The spiral that comes from engaging in the dangerous practice of reminiscing. I have spent a lot of time travelling through my history. Ripping apart my memories, only to put them back together in a more palatable manner. Creating a fantasy about what was and could have been. If I'm being delusional, it's safer there than in real life. 

Sometimes exasperation is the only answer. To look back at a period of your life, 'wake up from a dream' and say to yourself, 'what was that?'. Those people will never leave you but you learn to live with the past. After a while, the memory of them will pass through you without causing an emotional breakdown.

“What Was That” is not a question, as noted by Lorde's lack of punctuation, à la Sally Rooney. To me, it's an expression of shock at the actions of another. The disillusionment felt at the end of a relationship. A simple reflection that I'm sure plagues us all after we have gone through the stages of grief. Eventually, that sensation and those memories grow apart from you, and they quieten. But enroute to getting there, our girl Ella has delivered the gospel once more. A song to crash out to, to scream with your friends while you recount the great and maybe not-so-great, loves of your life.