Analysis of a Song Part 3: Ribs by Lorde

Photo by Alexander Fastovets on Unsplash

Welcome or welcome back to Analysis of a Song, a series where I pick a song and break down the lyrics section by section. In part 1, I looked at So Long, London by Taylor Swift. In part 2, I analysed Burn from the musical Hamilton. For this one, I thought it high time to shift to the person who is probably my second favourite artist after Taylor Swift: Lorde. The song I’ve chosen, Ribs, is on her debut 2013 album, Pure Heroine. This song was a grower for me, but I now consider it to be one of my all-time favourites.

The drink you spilt all over me
“Lover’s Spit” left on repeat
My mum and dad let me stay home
It drives you crazy, getting old

We can talk it so good
We can make it so divine
We can talk it good
How you wish it would be all the time

This song, to put it in the most simple way, is a song about growing up. It is a song about struggling to accept that childhood is almost over. Which is why I think this song is so universally loved, because that is a feeling most if not everyone can relate to. Lorde was 16 when she wrote Ribs, so she was at that weird age when you’re mostly still in the realm of childhood, but you have one foot in the door of adulthood. This is what the late-teen years are all about; you’re trusted to do adult things like driving, working, and make some of your own decisions, yet everyone still treats you like a kid.

Once at a concert, Lorde told the crowd she wrote this song after throwing a party with her sister and best friend. After the party was over and they all went to bed, Lorde found that she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that throwing a party made her feel like an adult; it felt like a grown up thing to do. She said, “it scared me to think of having one foot in that adult world, because who says we can go back? Like, can you be a kid and still do adult things? Do you have to leave that world behind? And this is the thought that keeps me up at night all the time.”

The opening lines of the song set the scene. “The drink you spilt all over me,” creates imagery of a party setting. Lover’s Spit is a real song by a band called Broken Social Scene, and Lorde mentioning that the song has just been left on repeat adds to the atmosphere of a party that is coming to a close. It’s late, the crowds are gone, the people left behind are packing up and cleaning up spilled drinks, meanwhile the same song is playing on loop over and over and nobody can be bothered to turn it off.

Source: Spotify

Lorde says her mum and dad let her stay home, and it’s almost as if she’s in disbelief about it. She can’t believe she’s old enough now that she’s allowed to stay home on her own. Everyone remembers the thrill of being allowed to stay home alone for the first time as a kid. There’s something exhilarating about it; it’s the first taste of independence for most teenagers. While this is something Lorde should be excited about, she follows it up with, “it drives you crazy getting old,” suggesting she’s unsure how to feel about this newfound freedom.

Most kids spend their childhoods wishing they could be adults. They want to be an adult so they can make all their own decisions instead of having someone tell them what to do all the time. They want to be an adult so they can eat as much junk food as they want, play video games whenever they want, go to bed as late as they want. But as soon as we become adults, we wish we could go back to being kids. We long for the simplicity of childhood; to go back to a time when we had no responsibilities or stress. We wish we could go back to a time when someone else made our decisions for us. Back to a time when we didn’t have to worry about money or work or taxes or car insurance. The freedom of independence is exhilarating at first, but it loses its novelty quickly.

The ‘we’ Lorde talks to in the second stanza is presumably the same friend she talks to later in the bridge. She talks about how easily she and this person can talk with each other; how everything feels so much lighter when she’s with this person. When they’re together, she no longer worries about the ever-looming adulthood; instead she’s carefree like a kid again. She can’t help but wish she could feel like that all the time.

The drink you spilt all over me
“Lover’s Spit” left on repeat
my mum and dad let me stay home
It drives you crazy getting old
The drink you spilt all over me
“Lover’s Spit” left on repeat
my mum and dad let me stay home
It drives you crazy getting old

There is a lot of repetition in this song and we see it first here. The first chorus is just Lorde singing the first section of the verse again, but she sings it differently. She sings it at a much quicker pace and with a sense of urgency this time. This could be a representation of how quick growing up feels, or how Lorde feels as if her childhood is slipping through her fingers so she’s desperately trying to hold on. I’ve also seen people compare this section to a quickened heartbeat, which could be a representation of the anxiety Lorde is feeling throughout the song.

This dream isn’t feeling sweet
We’re reeling through the midnight streets
And I’ve never felt more alone
It feels so scary getting old

The second verse parallels the first by following the same structure and rhyme scheme. She starts this verse off by saying, “this dream isn’t feeling sweet,” and I can’t help but connect that line to the idea of the “teenage dream.” The term teenage dream refers to the way the teen years are romanticised. The teenage experience, from high school to young love, is heavily documented across movies, tv shows, books, and music. Kids and preteens grow up absorbing all this, and then build up high expectations for their teen years in their heads. Because of this romanticisation, once kids actually become teenagers, there’s often a sense of underwhelm.

However, kids are not the only ones who romanticise the teen years. Adults do too. Many adults wish they could go back to their youthful teen years. It seems as if everyone wants to be teenagers expect teenagers. The teen years are known for being a time of emotional turbulence, growth, and discovery; so it’s easy to understand why this is a period of life so often romanticised.

The idea of the teenage dream is also well-known in pop music. There’s Katy Perry’s famous song (and album) Teenage Dream: “You make me feel like I’m living a teenage dream.” Olivia Rodrigo also touches on it in her song Brutal: “I’m so sick of 17, where’s my fucking teenage dream?” Lorde was likely feeling a similar way, in that her teen years weren’t meeting the expectation she’d dreamed of as a kid. This lyric is also a play on words of the term, “sweet dreams,” which is a phrase parents often say to their children, again tying in the theme of childhood.

Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” (photo)

“We’re reeling through the midnight streets,” again adds to the atmosphere of the song. This is a story taking place in the middle of the night. Lorde and her friends have just left a party and are tipsily walking through the dark suburb lit up by streetlights, meanwhile she can’t stop her head from reeling because childhood is over. We then get the two most vulnerable lines in the entire song: “I’ve never felt more alone. It feels so scary getting old.” Even though everybody goes through it, growing up can often be an isolating and terrifying experience. Lorde is opening up to the listener and straight-forwardly admitting she’s scared to grow up.

I want em’ back, I want em’ back
The minds we had, the minds we had
How all the thoughts, how all the thoughts
Moved ‘round our heads, moved ‘round our heads

I want em’ back, I want em’ back
The minds we had, the minds we had
It’s not enough to feel the lack
I want em’ back, I want em’ back
I want em’

Kids see the world in a very different way to how adults do. To kids, everything is black and white. Everything is either good or bad. For adults, everything is varying shades of grey. Again, Lorde is longing for the simplicity of childhood. She wishes she could get back that black and white way of thinking; back when everything was simple and straight-forward. Back when she had no resposibilities. Back when her biggest concern was who she was going to play with on the schoolyard that day, not what she’s going to do with her life after school finishes.

The ending of the stanza where Lorde just repeats “I want them” again and again mimics a kid throwing a tantrum. The cadence in which she sings makes it sound as if she’s a kid in a grocery store stomping her foot and pleading with her parents to buy her candy. I’m reminded of the Taylor Swift song seven from her album folklore, which is a song she wrote from the perspective of a seven year old. There’s a moment in the song where she says: “Before I learned civility, I used to scream ferociously anytime I wanted.” She expands on this lyric in the Long Pond Studio Sessions, where she says whenever she sees a kid throwing a tantrum in public because they didn’t get what they wanted, she can’t help but think at what point growing up is that something we grow out of. Kids let their emotions out freely, but at some point growing up, we learn to suppress our emotions. Lorde is so upset about growing up that she wants to throw a tantrum, but she can’t do that, because she’s not a kid anymore.

You’re the only friend I need (You’re the only friend I need)
Sharing beds like little kids (Sharing beds like little kids)
And laughing ‘til our ribs get tough (laughing ‘til our ribs get tough)
But that will never be enough (But that will never be enough)

With the way the bridge is set out, with a voice in the background repeating every line Lorde says, it’s almost as if the friend she’s talking to is singing back to her. The things she’s saying also sound like things a kid would say. It reminds me of one of those clapping chants you’d do in school like “apple on a stick.” Lorde is reminiscing on the innocence of childhood friendships — having sleepovers, laughing until your ribs are sore, pinky swearing you’ll be friends forever.

Despite the sweet nostaglia of the bridge, the song ends with the line, “but that will never be enough,” playing on loop. No matter how much time Lorde spends reminiscing on childhood, she’ll never get it back. it’ll never be enough.

It wasn’t until I dived into the lyrics that I realised just how many layers there are to this song. Like I said, this is a fan favourite amongst Lorde fans, and I completely understand why. Being scared of growing up is such a universal feeling, so is wanting to get childhood back. I know I sure as hell relate to this song.

If you have any differing interpretations to this song or anything you feel like I missed, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Until the next analysis,

- Lilly :)