‘It Feels So Scary Getting Old’: Pure Heroine and the Ache of Adolescence
By Kai Livingstone‘All my life I’ve been obsessed with adolescence, drunk on it. Even when I was little, I knew that teenagers sparkled. I knew they knew something children didn’t know, and adults ended up forgetting.’ – Lorde.
ELLA YELICH-O'CONNOR, better known by her stage name 'Lorde', was catapulted into stardom aged only sixteen, when she released her number-one, Grammy-winning single Royals. Since then, the New Zealand singer-songwriter has released four albums and garnered a cult following, continuing to establish herself as one of the music industry's most powerful forces, and cementing herself firmly in the cultural zeitgeist.
Her debut record, Pure Heroine, was released in 2013 and is a vivid portrayal of teenage disillusionment, life in the suburbs, and a biting critique of mainstream culture. One of the most important themes in the record is growing-up and maturing, looking fondly back at times spent doing nothing and everything during your youth. The way in which Lorde elicits nostalgia and regards her newfound adolescence is what I am going to explore in this revisit of an album which defined a generation, and redefined what it meant to make 'pop-music'.
Tennis Court, the album opener, begins with the lyrics, 'don't you think that it's boring how people talk?', with this direct address urging the listener to reflect on the tedium of gossip, the exhausting feeling of all eyes being on you, which stems from the type of egocentrism seemingly extinct in all species but the teenage one. For the speaker, the shallow nature of the people who they are surrounded by, does not seem to crush their spirit or counteract the peace which they go on to find on the record. In fact, the album's closing lyrics on A World Alone being 'let 'em talk', perfectly encapsulates the relinquishing of social anxiety, and urges the listener to join them and their decision to disengage with low-vibrational activities. I think that this expertly welcomes the listener into the world that Lorde creates on the record - one where she invites you to be free. To feel, and immerse yourself fully into thealbum which she has created, because only then will it be appreciated. Lorde first asks you whether you feel judgement, whether you feel the need to protect yourself from others and their opinions; before asking you to just allow them to exist, so that you can too.
Perhaps one of the more restrained tracks on the record, is 400 Lux, named after the measurement for light which stands at around fourhundred during a sunrise or a sunset on a clear day. It recounts the speaker and their lover, driving home with one another, enjoying their company and hoping that this time will never end. 400 Lux's hook is 'I love these roads where the houses don't change / Where we can talk like there's something to say. The monotony which the speaker talks of is alluding to the suburbs, a place where Lorde takes a creative interest in, the place where she comes from, a place where she is able to make great art, somewhere that's not traditionally 'great'.
The speaker goes on to comment on the meaningless conversations that she's having with her lover, reminiscent of those which we often engage in during our youth; when we speak ideas that have been infinitely conceived before us, as if they have a unique profoundness and depth. But the speaker acknowledges that it's just mindless conversa-tion, to fill the hours which once felt boundless and immeasurable, but now on reflection seem precious and limited. I think it's this very sense of transience achieved in this song, that Lorde continuously tries to convey throughout the album. The paradoxical sense of what being alive means when you're still growing up - the world feels small, but endless; you feel as if you don't matter, but you know that you're all that matters - and a feeling lingers, telling you that you will always feel like this. Lorde now knows that that's not true. Nothing lasts forever. And something that was once allconsuming, can pass with the blink of an eye.
Arguably the epitome of what Lorde was trying to achieve through this album - and a track which many to this day deem to be her magnum opus - was executed on Ribs, a track which has had a resurgence in popularity due to social media and the persevering adoration it has received from fans since its conception. A lament on adolescence, Ribs is a song which is either understood, or sits there patiently waiting for you to grow older, and understand. With lyrics referencing Broken Social Scene's blaringly nostalgic Lover's Spit, and a party to which the speaker is amongst the last to leave, this song viciously sinks its teeth into you with memories lived and lost. Ultimately, this song is about youth gone missing, and the fear associated with leaving your youth behind for a future clouded with uncertainty. Lines such as 'I've never felt more alone / It feels so scary getting old', are so confronting in the bluntness of their delivery that it becomes almost startling to the listener.
The track builds to a confession from the speaker: that they want their youth back. They confidently voice how 'it's not enough to feel the lack', emphasising that they will never be satiated with memories of being young: but that they want those exact experiences back. The track closes with the lyrics, 'We'll laugh until our ribs get tough / But that will never be enough', here the speaker acknowledges that all that's left to do is laugh through the pain, as they are destined, just like everybody else, to die with these unresolved feelings of nostalgia.
You fire through adolescence with a sense of indestructability and innocence, just to mourn what you've left behind, perhaps when you're not even aware that something has been lost. Through Pure Heroine, Lorde prompts us to consider - but isn't that the whole point?