Lorde Describes Meeting David Bowie In 2013 In Emotional Tribute To Singer

Musical treasure Lorde has paid tribute to the recently deceased superstar David Bowie, recounting meeting the icon in 2013 at a Vogue-hosted birthday party for then 53-year-old Tilda Swinton in a heart-warming Facebook post.

She writes:

“I was not quite seventeen, America was very new to me, and I was distinctly uneasy and distrustful towards everything happening in my life that was putting me in these flat-voiced, barrow-eyed, champagnes rooms. I played my three songs, thrashing and twitching in platform boots. Afterward, Anna [Wintour] clasped my hand and said “David wants to meet you,” and led me through people and round tables with candles and glasses and louder and louder talk, and he was there.

“I’ve never met a hero of mine and liked it. It just sucks, the pressure is too huge, you can’t enjoy it. David was different. I’ll never forget the caressing of our hands as we spoke, or the light in his eyes. That night something changed in me – I felt a calmness grow, a sureness. I think in those brief moments, he heralded me into my next new life, an old rock and roll alien angel in a perfect grey suit. I realised everything I’d ever done, or would do from then on, would be done like maybe he was watching. I realised I was proud of my spiky strangeness because he had been proud of his. And I know I’m never going to stop learning dances, brand new dances.”

At the time of their meeting, Lorde had recently released her debut album ‘Pure Heroine‘, and was in the middle of a supercharged rocket that would see her pick up 14 awards the following year, including two Grammys for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance (both for ‘Royals‘).

She later told Rookie Mag that Bowie said to her that “listening to you felt like listening to tomorrow.”

“It was super cute, though,” she said of their meeting, “for some reason we were holding hands and just staring into each other’s eyes and talking, and I was like, this is David Bowie’s hand, what am I doing? It was insane. A beautiful moment.”

In the extensive interview with Rookie editor Tavi Gevinson, she comes across as intensively private about that meeting, only bringing it up when asked to describe moments that have come ‘full circle’ for her.


“I never tell anyone about that experience, because it meant so much to me, and I feel like it would be dulled or something if I always talked about it in magazines or whatever,” she said at the time. “It’s my special thing.”

heroes

A photo posted by Lorde (@lordemusic) on

Read her post in full below:

When a hero dies, everyone wants a quote. I woke up this morning with a tender head from tears and that big red cup of…

Posted by Lorde on Monday, 11 January 2016

Photo: Lorde / Instagram.

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