page_title: Green Light (Lorde song)
section_title: Composition and lyrical interpretation
hierarchical_section_title: Green Light (Lorde song) / Composition and lyrical interpretation
caption_attribution_description: Jack Antonoff
context_page_description: "Green Light" is a song by New Zealand singer Lorde, from her second studio album Melodrama. Universal Music New Zealand released the song on 2 March 2017 as the album's lead single. Lorde co-wrote and co-produced the song with Jack Antonoff, with additional writing by Joel Little and production assistance from Frank Dukes and Kuk Harrell. "Green Light" was described as an electropop, dance-pop, and post-disco song with an upbeat piano loop, hand-claps, bass and strings in its instrumentation. In the lyrics, Lorde uses a "green light" as a street signal metaphor that gives her permission to move on into the future.
  Contemporary critics received "Green Light" with acclaim and praised its musical style, and Lorde's vocal delivery. It was called a break-up anthem. Several sites ranked it as one of the best songs of the year, with NME and The Guardian placing it in the top spot on their respective lists. The single garnered success on charts internationally, peaking at number 19 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and at number nine on the Canadian Hot 100 chart. In Oceania, it reached number four in Australia, and number one in New Zealand.
context_section_description: "Green Light" was written by Lorde (credited under her birth name Ella Yelich-O'Connor), Antonoff, and Joel Little, with production handled by the former two and Frank Dukes. It was the first track Lorde wrote for Melodrama. Writing took place over an 18-month period. Lorde's first heartbreak inspired the lyrics, leading reviewers to characterise them as being "downbeat" as well as having an "acceptance of longing". 
  Spencer Kornhaber from The Atlantic stated that Lorde was singing about the transitional phase of a breakup and obsessing over her ex "misleading" his new partner in the lyrics, "She thinks you love the beach, you’re such a damn liar". Kornhaber compared the "loop of bliss" in the last minute of the track to The Smiths song "How Soon Is Now?" (1984). Pretty Much Amazing writer Danilo Bortoli noted a change in perspective in Lorde's songwriting compared to her debut album. He also wrote that she used to portray the "role of master observer" and compared her new view to British singer Tracey Thorn.
  Musically, "Green Light" was described as an electropop, dance-pop, and post-disco song. According to sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, "Green Light" is set in common time with a "driving" tempo of 129 beats per minute. The song is composed in the key of A major, with Lorde's vocals ranging between the notes of D₃ and A₄. The BBC described the chorus that follows this section as "euphoric", while Forbes deemed it as power pop, featuring hand-claps, bass, and strings.
  The track begins with her singing solo with a lone piano playing "slow, steady" power chords consisting of a root note and the fifth above. Subsequently, in the first of the song's two pre-choruses, a "throbbing beat" plays amid "tongue-twisting lyrics, eerie background vocals, and bubbling electronic effects." In the second pre-chorus, a "cheery, upbeat piano loop and a kick drum" accompany Lorde as she sings about an "uneasy new reality." Here, the titular metaphor comes in the form of a hook: "I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it," leading reviewers to interpret the "green light" as a street signal that gives the singer permission to move on into the future.
caption: Jack Antonoff (pictured) co-wrote "Green Light".
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