Lorde Reveals the Dark Toll of Making ‘Solar Power’ and How She Refound Her Voice

Lorde’s fans were ecstatic when the New Zealand singer announced that she was kicking off a new tour this year in celebration of her latest album, “Virgin.” Described by Lorde to Pitchfork as “raw, primal, innocent, elegant, openhearted, spiritual, masc,” it sounded like something well worth the four years they’d been waiting for her to release new music.

However, as the “Royals” singer discusses her album in interviews, it becomes apparent that there was a point when it was unclear whether this, or any new music, would see the light of day. In a candid interview with BBC Radio 1, Lorde reveals the obstacles she had to overcome to get to where she is now.

Vanni Bassetti/Getty Images for Balenciaga

Food and Exercise Became All She Could Think About

Lorde has been very blunt about the ways her unhealthy obsession with being thin harmed her physical and mental well-being. However, we didn’t realize that her ability to create music was one of the aspects at stake.

“At the beginning of 2023, I was just, like, not in a great way on a lot of levels,” she told Jack Saunders on the “Radio 1 New Music Show.” “And I felt I’d never felt more disconnected from my kind of creativity. I hadn’t had an idea in a long time. And I don’t know, I just didn’t think that I had anything to offer. I didn’t know what my voice was.”

“This was, like, a period where all I was thinking about was trying to weigh as little as possible, and going to sleep thinking about food, and waking up thinking about food and exercise,” she continued. “And that was really just, that was my creative pursuit, you know? That was where it was all going. And really, around that time, I was like, ‘I need to stop doing this, because it’s blocking all my artistry.”

Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Lorde Spent Four Years Healing Her Body and Mind

Lorde told friend and filmmaker Martine Syms in an interview for Document Journal that, while making 2021’s “Solar Power,” she had been trying to make “my body very small, because I thought that that was what you did as a woman, and a woman on display.” Once she realized how weak she’d become and how ungrounded she felt, she sought help and began to regain her health. A significant part of that was spending time with friends.

“That was honestly the biggest goal for me of this new record,” she said. “It was like, I’m not going to put anything out until I’m in my body the way I know I’m supposed to be, to be able to do my work. That’s all I did the last four years, basically.”

“This album is a byproduct of that process of fully coming into my body and feeling the fullness of my power,” she added.