The biblical Book of Genesis tells the story of the fall of humankind after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit growing in the Garden of Eden. Though God had commanded them not to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they succumbed to the temptation, so He cast them out of Eden.
Here, Lorde uses the biblical story of the Fall as a vehicle for her feelings concerning climate change. Speaking to her parents' generation, she laments the bad choices they've made that have spoiled our Eden. By treating nature with disrespect, they are making our world inhabitable.
Through the halls of splendor where the apple trees all grew
You'll leave us dancing on the fallen fruit
Western Europeans often depicted the forbidden fruit as an apple in art. Like Adam and Eve were punished for disobeying God's command, we are reaping the consequences of our sinful destruction of our world. (Note Lorde uses the past tense "where the apple trees all grew").
Lorde recorded this psych-folk track for Solar Power, an album that celebrates the natural world. In making a record about the environment, she wanted to touch on the climate crisis but she didn't want to come across as a preachy pop star, so this eulogy for our pending environmental collapse is the only protest song on the project. "It's tricky to know how much to go there as a songwriter," Lorde told Spotify. "This is me sort of talking to my parent's generation, being like, 'Do you know what you've done? How could you have left us with this?'"
And we will walk together
Psychedelic garlands in our hair
Lorde started writing the song on a plane to Los Angeles to meet her producer, Jack Antonoff. She told Apple Music, "There's always a slightly kind of unhinged or unfiltered quality to songs I write on planes, because I'm at altitude or something."
Lorde started thinking how the destruction of the environment will define all of our lives and our planet will be unrecognizable for her children. She came up with the idea of having artificial foliage in our hair as a reminder of our past connection to nature. "I loved trying to make it sound like this flower child's lament," Lorde said, "and making it sound very Laurel Canyon, essentially."
The song's breakdown marks the singular appearance on Solar Power of Lorde's once-beloved 808 drums. "It's me describing an escape to somewhere safe that takes place in the future when our world has become uninhabitable," she said. "I liked snapping into a kind of modern thing for that."
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Jack Antonoff plays guitar, keyboard, piano and percussion. The other musicians are:
Bass: Malay
Flute: Evan Smith
Saxophone: Evan Smith
Background vocals: Marlon Williams, Clairo, Lawrence Arabia and Phoebe Bridgers
Lorde performed "Fallen Fruit" live for the first time when she appeared on the August 20, 2021 episode of
Good Morning America. Taking to the SummerStage in Central Park, New York, the Kiwi singer played a five-song set that also included "
Solar Power" and "California" as well as the
Melodrama singles "
Green Light" and "
Perfect Places."
Lorde also laid down a version of the song in te reo Maori, the indigenous language of New Zealand. "
Hua Pirau" is one of five tracks she recorded for
Te Ao Marama, a companion EP to
Solar Power with five tracks from the record sung fully in the Maori language. This tune features vocals from Hinewehi Mohi, Hemi Kelly, Bic Runga, and Hana Mereraiha.
Lorde co-directed the music video with Joel Kefali. Set in the same beach location as the "Solar Power" visual, it finds the once idyllic habitat in disrepair. "In the 'Solar Power' video, you were introduced to the island as a lush paradise - glistening water, blue skies, not a grain of sand out of place (barring that pesky beach trash…)," Lorde wrote. "Cut to: humans doing as they do, getting greedy, treating the land with disrespect and stripping it of its beauty. There'll always another pristine place to start again, right? The gardens that were once lush and fruitful are now on fire. The fishing boats are busted up and overturned. All that's left of the peaches are their pits. Amid all that, my character makes a choice."
