Lorde said, “Let there be music,” and there was music.

Nearly four years since the release of her last album, the 28-year-old New Zealand pop star has at last returned to our speakers with a brand-new song, “What Was That,” which dropped today at midnight. The single draws on the same angst and mania that pulsed through her 2017 sophomore album, Melodrama. In fact, “What Was That” builds on the themes and sounds in Melodrama’s lead single, the euphoric breakup anthem “Green Light,” without feeling derivative. Recruiting hit-making producers Jim-E Stack and Dan Nigro, Lorde’s latest track continues the story she had previously laid out nearly a decade ago—a story of grief and triumph that was only momentarily interrupted by the merriment of Solar Power, the fizzy and low-key pop record that she released back in 2021.

At once atmospheric and intimate, raging and tender, “What Was That” reproduces the dizzying symptoms of a breakup. Plainly evocative lines (“Do you know you’re still with me / When I’m out with my friends?”) punctuated by throbbing synth beats capture how heartbreak both disorients and reinvents. The Grammy winner first teased the song in a TikTok earlier this month and, later, played it to a few hundred lucky fans in Washington Square Park on Tuesday night. An accompanying music video, also released today, shows the singer marching upon New York City’s gray sidewalks, slick with fresh rain, dressed simply in an undone white button-down, silver chain necklaces, and black jeans. The video culminates with footage from her surprise pop-up in Washington Square Park. Lorde, “alone in a sea,” dances erratically in the middle of the historic park’s dry fountain while legions of fans hold their blinking phones up as witness.

In a brief blurb shared to her website early this morning, Lorde recalled what drove her to write the song in late 2023: “DEEP BREAKUP. STOPPING BIRTH CONTROL. EVERY MEAL A BATTLE. FLASHBACKS AND WAVES. FEELING GRIEF’S VORTEX AND LETTING IT TAKE ME. OPENING MY MOUTH AND RECORDING WHAT FELL OUT. JIMMY SHOUTING IN THE BACKGROUND. A THOUSAND HOURS OF AUDIO EMBROIDERY. DAN TELLING US WHERE THE MOOG BASS SHOULD GO. ANDREW GIVING IT TEETH. THE NIGHT WE FINALLY GOT THE DRUMS RIGHT. THE SOUND OF MY REBIRTH.”

Ahead, read the full lyrics to “What Was That.”

A place in the city
A chair and a bed
I cover up all the mirrors
I can't see myself yet
I wear smoke like a wedding veil
Make a meal I won't eat
Step out into the street, alone in a sea
It comes over me

Oh, I'm missin' you
Yeah, I'm missin' you
And all the things we used to do

MDMA in the back garden, blow our pupils up
We kissed for hours straight, well, baby, what was that?
I remember sayin' then, "This is the best cigarette of my life"
Well, I want you just like that
Indio haze, we're in a sandstorm and it knocks me out
I didn't know then that you'd never be enough, oh
Since l was seventeen, I gave you everything
Now, we wake from a dream, well, baby, what was that?

What was that?
Baby, what was that?

Do you know you're still with me
When I'm out with my friends?
I stare at the painted faces
That talk current affairs
You had to know this was happenin'
You weren't feelin' my heat
When I'm in the blue light, down at Baby's All Right
I face reality

I tried (I tried) to let (To let)
Whatever has to pass through me
Pass through, but this is stayin' a while, I know
It might not let me go

MDMA in the back garden, blow our pupils up
We kissed for hours straight, well, baby, what was that?
I remember sayin' then, "This is the best cigarette of my life"
Well, I want you just like that
Indio haze, we're in a sandstorm and it knocks me out
I didn't know then, but you'd never be enough, oh
Since l was seventeen, I gave you everything
Now, we wake from a dream, well, baby, what was that?

What was that?
'Cause I want you just like that (When I'm in the blue light, I can make it alright)
What was that? (When I'm in the blue light, I can make it alright)
Baby, what was that?