A Watershed Moment

“The girl, so confusing version with lorde”

Artist: Charli XCX/Lorde

There’s always a certain performance embedded in writing about someone else. Janet Malcolm, in her landmark 1989 essay The Journalist and the Murderer, famously argued that, at a fundamental level, journalism itself is “morally indefensible” when it involves writing about a subject without their consent. While she’s addressing New Yorker-style profiles, I think this notion extends beyond traditional journalism, creeping into any public writing—be it on Substack, in song, or elsewhere. Even in the most objective, generous writing, there’s a betrayal of confidences, omissions of context, and an inevitable loss of nuance. And when it comes to songwriters, particularly those who pen covert tributes to exes, frenemies, or critics, I can’t help but wonder if they too feel this unease. For all the bravado of a “Dear John” breakup anthem or the careful annotation of lyrics on Genius, there’s something inherently untruthful about putting someone else’s life into your art without giving them a chance to respond.

Take, for instance, Charli XCX's recent post about Lorde’s verse on the “Girl, so confusing” remix. She shared a screenshot of Lorde’s full contribution, and the greyed-out background seemed to imply that Lorde had sent her entire verse via text. Charli’s reply, in her usual Essexian style, was simple yet hilarious: “Fucking hell.” The original track, a raw, vulnerable expression of Charli trying to decipher her complex emotions towards someone—"Sometimes I think you might hate me / Sometimes I think I might hate you"—already sparked its own round of speculation about who the song might be about. But, if you’ve ever had a friend who is emotionally elusive, you’d get it without needing to know all the specifics. The remix, however, gave the internet a chance to dig deeper. Was this about Lorde? Was it a public airing of emotions? Or was it just a little inside joke between two talented artists? 

The lyrics Lorde sends back to Charli, framed in the screenshot, reveal a side of her that we didn’t quite get on Solar Power. There’s a new confidence, and she steps into the rhythm of the song with a deliberate, almost Nicki Minaj-like cadence—short-short-long-long-short-long-long—to express her insecurities. In true Lorde style, she offers a self-reflective note: “She believed my projection / Now I totally get it.” It’s this layered, self-aware songwriting that lets us see both her vulnerabilities and her sharpness. She’s essentially offering Charli a little emotional reassurance while acknowledging that their collaboration will inevitably set the internet abuzz. But is this just another piece of performative celebrity drama, a carefully orchestrated reconciliation for the cameras? Or is it a moment of genuine emotional clearing, a true reflection of the complexity of their relationship? In some surprising way, it manages to be both. The song strikes this rare balance between the cynical, reality-show-style pop of our era and something deeper—an authentic, messy moment of vulnerability that transcends the spectacle. It’s as Lorde says, “Two sides of the same coin”—and in that one moment, they’ve crafted something both personal and public, meaningful and performative, in this age where everything is on display.