Lorde’s “What Was That” Gives Us A Look At Love and Growing Up

BY DANY MIRELES

Five years after “Solar Power,” an album that felt like a sun-soaked escape from fame, heartbreak, and expectation, Lorde returns with “What Was That,” a single so vulnerable and intimate that it feels like we are reading a private journal entry left on a park bench in New York.

“A place in the city, a chair and a bed / I cover up all the mirrors, I can’t see myself yet.” That opening line sets the tone for the song: dissociation and the unbearable weight of reflection. The track's production is cinematic. This isn’t the Lorde of “Pure Heroine's” disillusioned teen dreams or “Melodrama’s” explosive heartbreak. This is a quieter and more mature devastation, looking at her past not for clarity but comfort.

The chorus hits you like a memory flash, “MDMA in the back garden, blow our pupils up / We kissed for hours straight, well, baby, what was that?” It’s euphoric and youthful, framed with the pain of hindsight. The confusion is raw and unresolved, becoming the backbone of the track. “Since I was seventeen, I gave you everything / Now, we wake from a dream / Well, baby, what was that?”

The repetition of “What was that?” evolves far more than just a question. It becomes a quiet echo through the spaces she once filled with love. She’s not trying to solve that mystery, but learning how to live with it. The second verse reveals even more fragility: “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.” She’s present, socially participating, yet is still haunted by someone who is just somewhere else.

The music video reinforces this idea, the singer is wandering through New York, moving without an urgency. There’s no performance, just a slow unraveling. The music video ends with a connection, as we see the singer arriving at Washington Square Park, where millions of fans were waiting for her, as she posted on her Instagram story that she would be there. She’s smiling, vulnerable, and real. It’s as if she’s been walking toward that place the entire song.

The timing of this single is no accident. “What Was That” marks the beginning of Lorde Summer. If “Melodrama” was about breaking down at a party, Lorde Summer feels like waking up the next morning, walking home in the clothes from the night before, trying to make sense of the pieces clinging to your skin. The energy of this brand-new era is already being felt online. Fans are excited to have Lorde back in the music scene; there is no better marketing than a collective feeling, and the singer knows this. She’s never been one to beg for attention; she just makes art that demands to be felt, and this song is exactly that.

This comeback isn’t one that is demanding headlines, Lorde doesn’t need to scream to be heard, and with “What Was That,” she proves it. And as the world is ready to slip into a Lorde Summer, one thing is clear. No one captures the ache of heartbreak and reflection quite like she does.