Lorde's “What Was That” Lyrics, Explained

The prodigal daughter of alt-pop, neon aesthetics, and New Zealand vibes is back. After teasing a snippet on TikTok last week, staging a Washington Square Park meetup that was canceled by the cops, then ceremoniously showing up anyway, Lorde dropped her new single “What Was That” on April 24.

The electro-pop banger marks her first release since 2021 (aside from a girl-powered soft launch via Brat remix) and a preview of what’s to come on her untitled fourth album, expected later this year. Unlike the tranquil and sun-soaked Solar Power — although not dissimilar to Melodrama’s urban hues — the synth-y single evokes a building rush aided by sonic flourishes from producers Jim-E Stack and Daniel Nigro of Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan fame.

When Lorde released the cover art — a startling photo featuring the 28-year-old in a bright red top with a dripping wet face — fans theorized it was a symbolic face wash. Indeed, in the sparse opening verse of “What Was That,” the singer recounts everyday mundanities: “a chair and a bed,” making a “meal I won’t eat,” and wearing “smoke like a wedding veil.” But as a throbbing beat ushers in the chorus, a single line breaks routine and makes everything clear: “I’m missing you and all the things we used to do.” Suddenly, that’s not water on her face, it’s sweat. And we’ve got a thrashing breakup bop on our hands.

In the throbbing chorus, Lorde lyrically recounts the vivid memories she shared with an ex, equating the intense high of their romance with their party drug of choice. “MDMA in the back garden, blow our pupils up / We kissed for hours straight / Well, baby, what was that,” its lyrics go. Seemingly, the intense moment occurred at Coachella as she sings of an “Indio haze, we’re in a sandstorm / And it knocks me out.” (Notably, Lorde, who performed at the festival in both 2014 and 2017, used the phrase to caption pics from her surprise appearance during Charli XCX’s set at this year’s Coachella.)

But like a festival weekend or psychedelics, heightened feelings in a relationship don’t last forever. As Lorde admits that, at the time, she didn’t know her lover would “never be enough,” she’s forced to confront the loss and make sense of how removed she is from their romantic moments: “Since I was 17, I gave you everything / Now, we wake from a dream / Well, baby, what was that?”

Accordingly, this pent-up energy extends through the second verse as Lorde elaborates on how this memory lingers when she’s “out with my friends” and watching the news. Nevertheless, she attempts to process the titular question in her own ways, facing “reality” while dancing “in the blue light, down at Baby’s All Right” (the Brooklyn venue where she attended Dev Hynes’ concert in 2022) and letting “whatever has to pass through me, pass through.”

After another sprinting chorus, a fading bed of synths underlines the sketches of a lyrical conclusion: “When I’m in the blue light, I can make it alright / Baby, what was that?” Perhaps Lorde won’t forget those romantic highs, but through chasing her own, she gets closer to feeling alright, evidenced by her carefree dancing in the video.

In a statement on her website, Lorde explains that the song was written in “late 2023” in the midst of “deep breakup.” “Feeling grief’s vortex and letting it take me. Opening my mouth and recording what fell out,” she writes of its inception. Fittingly, she dubs it her “rebirth,” not unlike a good molly trip, falling in love, or dancing to a new favorite song.