In her 2025 interview with Rolling Stone, Lorde explained the song’s creati… Read Full Bio ↴In her 2025 interview with Rolling Stone, Lorde explained the song’s creation process:
In 2023, she went shopping at clothing store C’H’C’M’ and tried on a pair of men’s jeans. She sent a picture to Stack to get his opinion. ‘He was like, ‘I want to see the you that’s in this picture represented in the music.’ This was before I had any sense of my gender broadening at all.’
Toward the end of that year, she went off birth control for the first time since she was 15. ‘I’ve now come to see [my decision] as maybe some quasi chicken-wing programming,’‘ she admits, presumably referring to years of far-right influencers pushing anti-contraception disinformation. 'But I hadn’t ovulated in 10 years. And when I ovulated for the first time, I cannot describe to you how crazy it was. One of the best drugs I’ve ever done.’
She wrote the album’s opening track soon after, as well as ‘Man of the Year.’ She felt like she had superpowers, like being off birth control had peeled a film off her life. But the ‘best drug’ came with bigger crashes than she had ever experienced. She would be diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder, a severe form of PMS that causes debilitating mood swings, among other symptoms; she has since inserted the IUD visible on her album cover. The experience opened up an avenue of discovery she hadn’t anticipated. ‘I felt like stopping taking my birth control, I had cut some sort of cord between myself and this regulated femininity,’ she explains. ‘It sounds crazy, but I felt that all of a sudden, I was off the map of femininity. And I totally believed that that allowed things to open up.’
When Lorde wrote ‘Man of the Year,’ she was sitting on the floor of her living room, trying to visualize a version of herself ‘that was fully representative of how [her] gender felt in that moment.’ What she saw once again was an image of herself in men’s jeans, this time wearing nothing else but her gold chain and duct tape on her chest. The tape had this feeling of rawness to her, of it ‘not being a permanent solution.’
‘I went to the cupboard, and I got the tape out, and I did it to myself,’ she tells me. ‘I have this picture staring at myself. I was blond [at the time]. It scared me what I saw. I didn’t understand it. But I felt something bursting out of me. It was crazy. It was something jagged. There was this violence to it.
In 2023, she went shopping at clothing store C’H’C’M’ and tried on a pair of men’s jeans. She sent a picture to Stack to get his opinion. ‘He was like, ‘I want to see the you that’s in this picture represented in the music.’ This was before I had any sense of my gender broadening at all.’
Toward the end of that year, she went off birth control for the first time since she was 15. ‘I’ve now come to see [my decision] as maybe some quasi chicken-wing programming,’‘ she admits, presumably referring to years of far-right influencers pushing anti-contraception disinformation. 'But I hadn’t ovulated in 10 years. And when I ovulated for the first time, I cannot describe to you how crazy it was. One of the best drugs I’ve ever done.’
She wrote the album’s opening track soon after, as well as ‘Man of the Year.’ She felt like she had superpowers, like being off birth control had peeled a film off her life. But the ‘best drug’ came with bigger crashes than she had ever experienced. She would be diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder, a severe form of PMS that causes debilitating mood swings, among other symptoms; she has since inserted the IUD visible on her album cover. The experience opened up an avenue of discovery she hadn’t anticipated. ‘I felt like stopping taking my birth control, I had cut some sort of cord between myself and this regulated femininity,’ she explains. ‘It sounds crazy, but I felt that all of a sudden, I was off the map of femininity. And I totally believed that that allowed things to open up.’
When Lorde wrote ‘Man of the Year,’ she was sitting on the floor of her living room, trying to visualize a version of herself ‘that was fully representative of how [her] gender felt in that moment.’ What she saw once again was an image of herself in men’s jeans, this time wearing nothing else but her gold chain and duct tape on her chest. The tape had this feeling of rawness to her, of it ‘not being a permanent solution.’
‘I went to the cupboard, and I got the tape out, and I did it to myself,’ she tells me. ‘I have this picture staring at myself. I was blond [at the time]. It scared me what I saw. I didn’t understand it. But I felt something bursting out of me. It was crazy. It was something jagged. There was this violence to it.
mAn OF THE YeaR
Lorde Lyrics
Gliding through on my bike, gliding through
Like new from my recent ego death
Sirens sing overnight, violent, sweet music
You met me at a really strange time in my life
Take my knife and I cut the cord
My babe can't believe I've become someone else
Someone more like myself
Who's gon' love me like this?
Oh-oh, who could give me lightnessLet it flow down to me?
Love me like this
Now I'm broken open?
Uh-huh-uh
Now I go 'bout my day, riding it like a wave
Playing it any way I want
Swish mouthwash, jerk off
Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh
Days go by in a haze, stay up and sleep late
Who's gon' love me like this?
Oh-oh, who could give me lightness
Way he flowed down through me?
Love me like this
Now I'm broken open
Let's hear it for the man of the year
Uh-huh-uh
Hear it for the man of the year
Uh-huh-uh
How I hope that I'm remembered, my
Gold chain, my shoulders, my face in the light, oh
I didn't think he'd appear
Let's hear it for the man of the year
Hear it for the man of the yearLet's hear it for the man of the year
Like new from my recent ego death
Sirens sing overnight, violent, sweet music
You met me at a really strange time in my life
Take my knife and I cut the cord
My babe can't believe I've become someone else
Someone more like myself
Who's gon' love me like this?
Oh-oh, who could give me lightnessLet it flow down to me?
Love me like this
Now I'm broken open?
Uh-huh-uh
Now I go 'bout my day, riding it like a wave
Playing it any way I want
Swish mouthwash, jerk off
Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh
Days go by in a haze, stay up and sleep late
Who's gon' love me like this?
Oh-oh, who could give me lightness
Way he flowed down through me?
Love me like this
Now I'm broken open
Let's hear it for the man of the year
Uh-huh-uh
Hear it for the man of the year
Uh-huh-uh
How I hope that I'm remembered, my
Gold chain, my shoulders, my face in the light, oh
I didn't think he'd appear
Let's hear it for the man of the year
Hear it for the man of the yearLet's hear it for the man of the year
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: James Harmon Stack, Ella Marija Lani Yelich O'connor
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
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@delusionalthomaz
{Lyrics}
Glidin' through on my bike, glidin' through
Like new from my recent ego death
Sirens sing overnight, violent, sweet music
You met me at a really strange time in my life
Take my knife and I cut the cord
My babe can't believe I've become someone else
Someone more like myself
[Chorus]
Who's gon' love me like this?
Oh-oh, oh, who could give me lightness
Let it flow down to me
Love me like this
Now I'm broken open?
Mm-mm, uh-huh-uh
[Verse 2]
Now I go 'bout my day
Riding it like a wave
Playing it any way I want
Swish mouthwash, jerk off
Uh-uh, uh-uh-uh
Days go by in the haze (Ts, uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh)
Stay up and sleep late (Ts, uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh)
(Ts, uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh)
(Ts, uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh)
[Chorus]
Who's gon' love me like this?
Oh-oh, oh, who could get me like this?
Way he flow down through me
Love me like this
Now I'm broken open
Let's hear it for the man of the year
Mm-mm, uh-huh-uh
Hear it for the man of the year
Mm-mm, uh-huh-uh
[Outro]
How I hope that I'm remembered
My gold chain, my shoulders, my face in the light, oh
I didn't think he'd appear
Let's hear it for the man of the year
Hear it for the man of the year
Well, let's hear it for the man of the year
@chanmingheijocelyn
i couldn't believe 3 minutes had passed when the song ended abruptly, i had to look at the video timer. this is a magical sound and visual journey.
pure art.
@TheCalifornianeskimo
I was genuinely confused at the end, “wait, that’s it?”
@ohluix
Exactly same feeling!
@Imberis
Same! For some reason the song felt really short but it's a totally average song length. I think maybe I just wanted it to be longer because I was enjoying it so much?
@themontanamarie
woah i read this comment and said let’s see, no kidding i couldn’t believe it was over, that’s insane LOL
@madam94
Absolutely my first response when the music stopped. Visceral video.
@itsMGphotography
From Liability, to Secrets of a Girl, to now Man of the Year. This is insane character development and I’m sobbing
@kaeltkottmir
start from royals
@jrdjasonp
Stoned at the nail salon*
@itsMGphotography
@@jrdjasonpyes, I just am highlighting lyrics of hers about finding love for herself, these 3 songs showcase it so heavy ❤️❤️❤️ much love to SATNS*