Words by Sophia Campanella
Just a week ago, Lorde got very vulnerable with her identity in a brand new song, “Man of the Year,” the second single off of her upcoming fourth studio album, Virgin. Throughout the song, Lorde takes us on a journey of self-discovery and personal identity. She describes “Man of the Year” in her announcement Instagram post as “An offering from really deep inside me. The song I’m proudest of on Virgin.”
In a recent radio interview with triple j, Lorde revealed that she started writing “Man of the Year” the day after attending the GQ’s Men of the Year award ceremony. She stated, “I have been feeling, you know, this, like, expansiveness of gender happening for a while, and this was my first event that I’d been to in a while and I wore, like, kind of like a hot girl dress… And I felt so not like myself. And it was a really cool marker especially being at this event that was celebrating all these cool guys. I was like, oh I’m one of those guys like sometimes you know, when I want to be.”
Lorde sets a scene for us in the first lyrics of the song, singing “Gliding through on my bike, gliding through / Like new from my recent ego death.” Biking seems to be a recurring theme on Lorde’s upcoming album, as the first time we see it is in the “What Was That” music video, where Lorde is seen gliding through New York City on a bike. In the following line, she personifies her identity as a physical being, saying, “You met me at a really strange time in my life.”
As the verse continues, Lorde sings, “Take my knife and I cut the cord / My babe can’t believe I’ve become someone else / Someone more like myself.” Lorde mentioned this metaphorical chord in an interview with Rolling Stone when talking about her experiences going on and off birth control. She said, “I felt like stopping taking my birth control, I had cut some sort of cord between myself and this regulated femininity.” This line is also a tie into the album cover of Virgin, where you can see Lorde’s IUD in an X-ray of her pelvis.
The “Man of the Year” music video is an incredible visual representation of the story Lorde is telling, as you can watch her physically grow into the person she wants to become through her actions and body language. As she takes off her shirt during the chorus, she sings the lyrics “Who’s gon’ love me like this? /Oh, who could give me lightness? / Let it flow down to me / Love me like this / Now I’m broken open / Uh-uh.”
The second verse provides further context as Lorde delves deeper into this persona. As she sings, “Now I go ‘bout my day riding it like a wave / Playing it any way I want / Swish mouthwash, jerk off / Days go by in the haze, stay up and sleep late,” she is starting to free herself of what society has always expected from her. In her music video, Lorde is taping her chest flat with duct tape, trying to give herself a more masculine appearance. She then stands up from her chair and starts to walk forward, with a much more confident stance, but a more concerned and scared facial expression. She sings the chorus again, personifying her identity as the “man of the year” once again as she adds more male pronouns, singing “Way he flowed down through me” this time around.
As Lorde was talking to Rolling Stone, she spoke about our current administration’s war against the trans community. She says, “I don’t think that [my identity] is radical, to be honest… I see these incredibly brave young people, and it’s complicated. Making the expression privately is one thing, but I want to make it very clear that I’m not trying to take any space from anyone who has more on the line than me. Because I’m, comparatively, in a very safe place as a wealthy, cis, white woman.”
There has been an outpouring of love and appreciation on social media for Lorde, especially from the LGBTQ+ community. Many fans say they feel seen in the lyrics as they explore their gender representation, and are happy that such a mainstream artist has released a song that is both deeply personal and about a subject under attack in our current political climate.
Loudspeaker Collective 