Lorde - Liability (Lyric Video)

About “Liability”
“Liability” is new territory for Lorde: it’s a soft, piano-driven ballad that’s far more personal than her previous work. Lorde herself described the song as “a strange part of [herself] for a lot of people to look at.”

She said further in an interview:

It’s kind of not really about anyone. It’s about me and just feeling the pressure of people finding it difficult to be friends with me- to be close to me. It was very much a product of me sitting alone in taxis and alone in my living room, and working out how to be my own best mate really.”

At a concert she said:

And this is a song that I wrote, and it marked a real turn for me. When we first started writing I was afraid of it. I thought it was corny and I was like “this is lame.” And then Jack was like, “this is straight up David Bowie chords.” And I was like, “oh yeah, okay.” I’d never really written anything about being my own best friend; about learning to take myself out to dinner, or sit in my house and, bake some weird cake, you know, about being out on my own and loving myself and respecting myself. Because it’s important, it’s very important, especially if you’re a strange, spiky, multicolored person like I am."

The track is the second song released from Lorde’s sophomore album Melodrama. It was released abruptly on March 9, 2017, with no teasers or hints, unlike the debut of the album’s lead single “Green Light,” which was heavily promoted before its release one week prior to this song.

American songwriter and producer Jack Antonoff, who also co-produced and wrote “Green Light,” returns for “Liability” with the same credits.