Following on from the release of “Solar Power”, the title track from her forthcoming album, Lorde has shared a second single called “Stoned at the Nail Salon”. She says:
“This song is sort of a rumination on getting older, settling into domesticity, and questioning if you’ve made the right decisions. I think lots of people start asking those questions of themselves around my age, and it was super comforting to me writing them down, hoping they’d resonate with others too. I used this song as a dumping ground for so many thoughts…”
Backed solely by featherlight, ruminative guitar to begin, it’s easy to picture Lorde exactly where the title suggests: “Stoned at the Nail Salon”. Her lyrics support this as she sounds at peace, but can’t help her mind from wandering towards fatalistic ideas. In typically Lorde fashion, she expresses her insecurity by mentioning a wishbone waiting on her windowsill, but from there, her worries about ageing become universal. “All the beautiful girls they will fade like the roses,” she laments as a whisper of pedal steel calls in the background. “And all the times they will change,” she adds, before qualifying, “I don’t know / maybe I’m just stoned at the nail salon.” This doesn’t stop her from delving deeper into this idea of life’s brevity, and she has a couple of classic lines about dancing on landmines and being hell-raisers; “I’d ride on the carousel round and round forever if I could.” These moments of reflection on life’s ephemeral joys lead her to a simple but resonant truth: “spend all the evenings you can with the people who raised you,” which puts a beautiful bow on this introspective delight.
Listen to “Stoned at the Nail Salon” below or on your preferred platform.
Lorde’s new album Solar Power comes out on August 20 through Universal (pre-order/save). You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
