As anybody who has recently seen Sadie Sink in John Proctor Is the Villain on Broadway can attest, Lorde’s “Green Light” is as great as ever. In that play, set in 2018, a group of teenage girls let out a whole lot of very loaded angst while dancing to “Green Light.” These are the girls who called out of work seven years later on April 24 to worship Lorde’s new single, “What Was That,” her first dance-pop song since Melodrama. Though the song is produced by Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo collaborator Dan Nigro and Bon Iver collaborator Jim-E Stack, instead of Jack Antonoff, it still feels like a return. The song even begins with the same chords as Melodrama’s “Supercut.” So is “What Was That” a supercut of her previous work?
“LATE 2023. BACK IN NEW YORK. DEEP BREAKUP,” Lorde wrote of the song on her website. New York breakup? To quote past Lorde: We told you this is Melodrama. As an introduction to her new era, “What Was That” references and amends her previous work with the growth she’s experienced since, including on last year’s “Girl, so confusing” remix. Below, all the ways “What Was That” reminds us of “Green Light,” the Melodrama era, and just how badly we needed it.
A place in the city
A chair and a bed
I cover up all the mirrors
I can’t see myself yet
I wear smoke like a wedding veil
The song opens, much like “Green Light,” by describing Lorde’s current reality through brief images. Even the mirror is reminiscent of “Green Light,” where she “does her makeup in somebody else’s car.” This time, though, she can’t even look in the mirror. The wedding veil is a reminder of when she dressed like a bride to perform the heartbreak piano ballad “Liability” on SNL.
Make a meal I won’t eat
Step out into the street, alone in a sea
It comes over me
Here, Lorde references her struggle with disordered eating that she first opened up about on her “Girl, so confusing” verse with Charli XCX: “I tried to starve myself thinner, but then I gained all the weight back.”
Oh, I’m missin’ you
Yeah, I’m missin’ you
And all the things we used to do
Rather than a reference to herself, this pre-chorus feels like a tip of the hat to Lorde’s constant inspiration, Robyn, who was featured on Solar Power on the song “Secrets From a Girl (Who’s Seen It All).” On Robyn’s “Missing U,” off her 2018 album Honey, she murmurs in a very similar way that she is “missin’ you.” It’s easy to imagine “Missing U” on Lorde’s breakup playlist.
MDMA in the back garden, blow our pupils up
We kissed for hours straight, well, baby, what was that?
I remember sayin’ then, “This is the best cigarette of my life”
Well, I want you just like that
Lorde previously told Vogue that the Melodrama album is very specifically inspired by doing MDMA (as opposed to Solar Power, which is about weed). The return to that drug is also a return to the state she was writing in during Melodrama’s creation.
Indio haze, we’re in a sandstorm and it knocks me out
I didn’t know then that you’d never be enough, oh
Since I was 17, I gave you everything
Now, we wake from a dream, well, baby, what was that?
What was that?
Baby, what was that?
Anytime Lorde references adolescence, it’s loaded. She was 16 when she became a pop star with “Royals,” and on “Perfect Places,” she famously intoned, “I’m 19 and I’m on fire.” “Indio haze,” meanwhile, refers to the land of Coachella, where Lorde made her debut at just 17. Kind of makes her appearance during Charli XCX’s on not-quite-headlining set a little more meaningful.
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
Well, this is just the situation she describes in “Green Light” with “But honey I’ll be seein’ you ’ever I go.” The main difference is that, in “What Was That,” other people exist, while in “Green Light,” it felt like the entire world had narrowed down to just Lorde and her ex. This time — and this is probably just a symptom of growing up — her admittedly boring friends are poking through.
You had to know this was happenin’
You weren’t feelin’ my heat
When I’m in the blue light, down at Baby’s All Right
I face reality
Oh, look at that, a colored light! This time, she’s not waiting for it. Instead, she’s at the Williamsburg club Baby’s All Right.
I tried (I tried) to let (to let)
Whatever has to pass through me
Pass through, but this is stayin’ a while, I know
It might not let me go
This works in direct opposition to “Green Light,” on which she asserted that “I can’t let go” and “I wish that I could get my things and just let go.” It’s not that she can let go now; it’s that she’s stopped trying to fight it.
What was that?
’Cause I want you just like that (When I’m in the blue light, I can make it all right)
What was that? (When I’m in the blue light, I can make it all right)
Baby, what was that?
On “Green Light,” the light represents the hope that she can move on, but it’s constantly out of reach. Here, the blue light of the party illuminates “reality” where she can “make it all right.” It doesn’t feel like she’s gotten over the breakup, but she knows how to get through it, and she’s not waiting.
