"Perfect Places"is the second single from Lorde's sophomore album, Melodrama. [1]
Background
Composition
Lorde revealed the meaning of the song is about going to parties and hooking up, in which she pierces an atmosphere of hedonism with stabs of melancholy — a recurring technique across the album, apparently.[1] Lorde also revealed "“It’s lived a million lives, we’ve tried it at different tempos, used different voicings, took it half time, made it weird and druggy, but that didn’t work. A big problem is that there’s so much to the song. The other day I had a breakthrough: What if we delete the entire prechorus? Just take it out, and I never have to hear it again in my life? We did, and now the whole thing follows a much simpler trajectory. But we still haven’t cracked the code.” She and Jack Antonoff had an idea in mind for the hook: What if a mass of multitracked Lordes came in, belting out the words together beneath the main vocal like a choir of clones? She approached a microphone beside the mixing board to try it out. “Can you do some shouty, bratty ones?” Antonoff asked. “In the room it’ll sound crazy, but in the mix it’ll sound like a bunch of kids.”
"As Lorde sang, she put her whole body into it, twitching her legs and throwing her arms as if she were the only person in the room. She delivered one take, then another, precisely modulating her performance as she went. She stepped back several feet from the microphone in order to yell; got in close to murmur. “These are fun-drunk vocals,” she said. “I should try them sadder.”" [1]
She later released the track list for Melodrama which showed "Perfect Places" was the 11th song on the track list.[2] The song was later released as a single.[3]
References
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