Does staring “thoughtfully” into the camera really “mean something” anymore? Lorde seems to think so. That it’s all that’s required to get across the message of direness presented in her eeriest, most poignant track from Solar Power, “Fallen Fruit.” Told as though from the perspective of a generation that has already come of age in the era of full-tilt climate dystopia (because yes, it’s going to get so much worse still), Lorde sings in a manner both accusatory and resigned when she bemoans, “You’ll leave us dancing on the fallen fruit.”
The fruit once so bountiful and ripe on their trees in the era when boomers and their post-WWI predecessors came of age. Convinced that capitalism was the way, the light, the truth. Which is why Lorde calls them out with the opening lines that address them directly: “To the ones who came before us/All the golden ones who were lifted on a wing.” She then points out that, thanks to them, her generation had no idea their dreams were going be “too big.” Even the most rudimentary ones like the so-called American dream that involves living in suburbia and having two cars in the garage. Not really an option if the Earth is caving in around us. Of course, Lorde herself will be fine, especially since she’s already in New Zealand where an entire subterranean (the new suburban?) neighborhood seems to be cropping up among the world’s elite. That is, the ones who would rather not accompany Elon to Mars.
Co-directed by Joel Kefali and Lorde, the video alternates schizophrenically between daylight and moonlight as Lorde—wearing very Lana Del Rey-inspired barrettes—walks as though trying her hardest to appear in slow-motion. Perhaps some pointed symbolism about how we all need to slow down and reassess our goddamn priorities. In the daylight, the errant people around her pay no mind to her zombie-like state, and at night, they’ve all disappeared, leaving Lorde to appraise the sinister emptiness like she’s in 28 Days Later. Granted, there are a few people who scurry past her as though she’s not even there. In this manner, it feels like night is a representation of the “bombed-out” vibe that comes with a post-apocalyptic situation (something Madonna got right in the video for “Ghosttown”).
As Lorde lists fossil fuel-oriented tools of destruction, including, “From the Nissan to the Phantom to the plane,” she forewarns, “We’ll disappear in the cover of the rain.” Could be acid rain, but whatever. Lorde’s languid journey across the beach (complete with a clothesline tableau to assure us of New Zealand’s “quaintness”) is her reconciliation that, “It’s time for us to leave.” One way or another…whether by finding shelter in some condemned outpost or expiring altogether. Lorde is aware of the gravity of it all, which is why it comes as a surprise that the video for the song isn’t more urgent. More evocative.
If anything, Lorde ought to have gone all out on evincing the destruction that will come within the next decade if no extreme changes are made. She could have been filmed among landslides, tornados, hurricanes, fires, beneath a trash-filled sea—shit, she could’ve even gone all out on copying LDR by having a fruit-drenched Garden of Eden scene (perhaps showing a time lapse of all the fruit rotting). But no, she chose for the “simple” (read: banal) idea of her strolling along the beach. The same damn one that appears in the “Solar Power” video anyway (itself an undercutting win for capitalism in that it comes across as a Madewell advertisement). The same damn one whose name she won’t reveal so as to keep it a secret from plebes. The very plebes who will suffer the most when it all goes down.
Lorde, meanwhile, will keep calmly walking to her gas-guzzling luxury vehicle as she does at the end of the video. An act that feels more than slightly antithetical to the purpose of this song (like, how about just don’t include a car in the narrative?). Oh well, maybe the next video will better correlate with the weight of the single. In the meantime, one is better off watching the “Fallen Fruit” video that includes “Break the Ice” beforehand.
