What Lorde’s New Music Is Telling Us About Her Gender Identity

In the run up to the release of her first album in four years, Virgin, Lorde has announced that her next single will be ‘Man of the Year’ – a song all about her gender identity.

Lorde wrote the track after coming off birth control and realising her gender felt more fluid than she previously thought. The track follows on from her first single of the album which was released back in April called ‘What Was That.’

Taking to Instagram, she said: “An offering from really deep inside me. The song I’m proudest of on Virgin. Out next week. Shot by Talia Chetrit”. The caption was accompanied by a photo of the track’s cover which showed a close up of her chest, covered by duct tape.

 

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Lorde previously teased the release of the cover of her new track at the Met Gala two weeks ago, where she wore a Thom Browne set with a backless top.

Talking to Rolling Stone, Lorde said when writing ‘Man of the Year’, she tried to picture how her gender felt in that moment in time.

She visioned herself wearing men’s jeans with nothing else apart from a gold chain and duck tape on her chest. She explained that the tape signified a sense of rawness to her because it was not “a permanent solution”.

 

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Lorde has also opened about her recent friendship with Chappell Roan over the past year. When Roan asked her “so, are you non-binary now?”, Lorde responded, “I’m a woman except for the days when I’m a man”. She said, “I know that’s not a very satisfying answer, but there’s a part of me that is really resistant to boxing it up”.

Lorde still identifies as a cisgendered woman, and her pronouns remain as she/her, but describes herself as “in the middle gender wise”.

She has also recently opened up about how overcoming her eating disorder helped her to embrace her true identity. She said, “I was very weak. I look back now, and I don’t have that same feeling of floating away”.

Virgin will be released on the 27^th of June.

Words By Nikita Hall