Sing Me A Story> Are You On Lorde’s Team?

Born in New Zealand as Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor (which is giving flashbacks to Schoolhouse Rock back when “pronoun” was just a grammar term), the singer known to the world as Lorde doesn’t sound like my kind of singer, and yet I fully enjoy her music, or at least what I’ve heard on the radio. It’s nice, calming mix of pop and introspective. She’s a feminist but added an “e” to “lord” to make it more feminine as part of her interest in royalty, as you can guess from her first big hit, “Royals”. That song made her the first New Zealander and one of the younger women to hit the Billboard Top 100.

However, we’re looking at her third single release, this one coming from the 2013 album Pure Heroine. “Team” showed up in some reel on Facebook and I got curious what the story was behind it. I heard the song a lot when it came out, as radio stations and stores both aired it. I never really listened to the lyrics before, though. Maybe that’s why I though the song started out by calling out someone named “Nicole Allison”. Sorry, Nicole, but this wasn’t your time to shine.

I had trouble finding out what the song was about, actually. I learned more of the story behind the music video, which of course we ignore in this series in favor of the lyrics. She got the idea from a dream. That’s interesting, but the focus is on the song itself, so let’s hear and read the lyrics first.

I went over some of the suggestions on Songmeanings, a website where people discuss possible meanings to songs or what they mean to them personally. There were some interesting ones, and I don’t mean the guy who thought the chains referred to Satan being chained up. (Seriously, where do you even get that from?) A few talked about teen disillusionment about the real world, one saw the line about the boys with scars and equated it to his own experience dealing with acne scars, and one person actually went to what Lorde said and still had their own take. I like that everyone seems to have gotten their own experience told through this. (Except for poor Nicole Allison.) So what’s the actual story? Let’s ask Songfacts:

The third single from Lorde’s debut album, Pure Heroine, finds the teenage singer touching on disconnection with modern pop music and the difference between on-screen portrayals and reality over a clap-along synth-heavy beat. She told Billboard magazine: There are a few lines which are kind of me being the ‘realistic’ pop star: ‘We live in cities you’ll never see on-screen,’ which is like, no one comes to New Zealand, no one knows anything about New Zealand, and here I am, trying to grow up and become a person. I’ve been countering that with going to New York and seeing this place that’s in every movie and every TV show. Part of me wanted to go back to writing for me and for my friends, and write something that I felt related to us a little bit.”

Some of the commenters on the source sites I used for this did mention an issue with the pop music of the time, sharing beats and being “party anthems” being the two big issues. In fact, apparently one of those party writers took issue with one line in the song.

Lorde told The Fader there are two lines on the song that are particularly important to her. She said: “One of them was: ‘We live in cities you’ll never see onscreen.’ Because I like in Auckland, which is definitely not New York. It just felt important for me to be speaking for the minority. Coming from a small city, somewhere that feels unimportant, you just wanna get out of there. You’re whole teenage life The other line is: ‘I’m kind of over getting told to throw my hands up in the air.’ Because, there’s been so much of that in pop music, and I’m like, this is the stupidest thing. Being told to put your hands in the air? That’s the last thing I wanna do right now. I just wanted to be a bit more realistic. I don’t if that’s relating to young people in general, or just people who listen to pop.”

I’m kind of over gettin’ told to throw my hands up in the air

The biggest culprit in the hands-in-the-air movement was the omnipresent Taio Cruz song “Dynamite,” where he sings:

I throw my hands up in the air sometimes
Saying A – O, gotta let go

This part of Cruz’ song was written by Bonnie McKee, who was a bit tweaked when she heard “Team.”

“I was insulted by that, definitely,” McKee told Billboard. Clever, though.

I’m not sure if that last part was McKee or commentary by the article writer. Either way, this counters speculation that she was referring to cops dealing with rowdy teens just trying to have fun (without being smart enough to do so responsibly). I know she grew up in a poor neighborhood according to what little research I did, but not every teen gets in trouble. It looks more like her coming from a small New Zealand town nobody talks about being inspired by visiting a large city everybody talks about.

Lorde looks down on various festivities in this song, but four years later, she joined the party with her album Melodrama, which is based on the theme of a single house party.

Funny how that turned out.

So now I finally know what the lyrics to this song are. You can use those links to learn more about the video or the musicality of the song, but it’s the story that matters here and this is a nice song with an interesting topic. I just feel sorry for poor Nicole Allison. Maybe someday her day will come.