Lorde Has a Pretty, Existential Crisis on ‘Stoned at the Nail Salon’

When Lorde announced her next Solar Power offering would be titled “Stoned at the Nail Salon,” many expected a chilled-out jam in line with the free-spiritedness of her lead single, “Solar Power.” Now, “Stoned at the Nail Salon” has arrived, and it’s more in line with the contemplative Lorde we knew on Melodrama and Pure Heroine than the one we met on “Solar Power.” On the intimate, hushed ballad, the singer-songwriter takes stock of how time has passed as she gets older and watches her world change. “’Cause all the music you loved at 16, you’ll grow out of / And all the times they will change, it’ll all come around,” she sings. “I don’t know / Maybe I’m just stoned at the nail salon.”

Speaking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe about the song, Lorde said “Stoned” was prompted by her “thinking about me at 16, my parents getting older, all these big, heavy things, really confronting my mortality.

“It’s definitely one of the quietest, most introspective, and internal moments on the record,” she added, “but I thought it was cool to start with ‘Solar Power’ and then to be like, ‘And also this.’” Lorde once again worked on the song with Jack Antonoff, who helmed her stellar second album, Melodrama, and once again enlisted Clairo and Phoebe Bridgers for backing vocals, after they contributed to “Solar Power.” She’s set to debut “Stoned at the Nail Salon” on July 21’s Late Night with Seth Meyers, ahead of Solar Power’s release in just under a month, on August 20.