When it comes to teenagers and popularity, reputation matters. One small move, and everyone has an excuse to gossip about you in the school hallways.

Modern teenager’s night time antics are extremely different to how they pretend to be at day. This hints at how the white teeth teens are a slightly hypocritical as they judge the people who do the same things as them – the only difference being the time they do it.

“The blue” refers to the the ocean surrounding New Zealand, where Lorde lives. Similar to how the water makes Lorde feel better.

This also refers to the idiom “out of the blue”. Ella finds joy and peace in this discrete little place, a place where she is cut away from the outside world and she doesn’t mind at all.

Lorde has stated in an interview with Billboard:

I’m surrounded by the beach, so I love to fish and to dive and to swim. I walk a lot, and I bike around. I hang out at the beach, really, and muck around.

Again this is very similar to Royals, yet this time it is a far more morbid take on it:

We don’t care, we’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams

In childhood, she dreamt about castles and princess and basically conjured a vivid fantasy world. As she got older and more self aware of the world, her fantasy crumbled as she got to grips with the reality of the world. The real world is just a depreciated version of her imagination.

As confirmed in a Billboard interview, this was Lorde’s response to radio pop at the time (such as Flo Rida’s “In the Ayer”), which was saturated with singers telling listeners and party goers to throw their hands in the air. This line describes teenage rebellion on a musical level; she’s flaunting the musical opinions she developed as she matured.

Lana lived a very fast paced childhood, where she was out partying almost every night.

Leaving the lights on for Lana is a reference to how late Lana gets home from partying. Her Grandma has long gone to sleep before her return, but still wants Lana to come home safe.

This could be a reference to the Arctic Monkeys' Leave Before The Lights Come On, which details the secrecy of night life and its long term consequences.

Lorde craves the innocence of childhood by comparing the fact they’re sharing beds to sleepovers they had when they were younger. They laugh and joke and pretend like things were like they used to be. When really nothing can stop them growing up.

They laugh until their ribs get tough. This emphasises how as a child you are carefree and you laugh frequently. However, one day you’ll bones will get stronger so you can’t laugh as much, this symbolises the loss of innocence. Lorde doesn’t want her ribs to become more tough, she wants to be a child forever. When you laugh too much or too hard, no matter how old you are, your ribs will begin to hurt, and one will experience pain in the rib area because of all the laughing.

This is also about memories that Lorde shares on Letterman as well as at multiple tour stops. She and her best friends were on a bed together talking about all the things that were happening to her, like her getting to be an artist – she had been signed to Universal Music Group when she was only thirteen!

Sharing beds, though this is most probably literal, can also mean sharing personal things. This would be with her friends that she had been referring to in interviews and in a few of her songs, just like this line.

When she was younger, Lorde thought that growing up would be the greatest thing in the world. Now that she’s more aware of time, her greatest dream transformed into a nightmare.

She adds on to this by saying it is like “reeling through midnight streets” – her word choice making it spooky and dark. Reeling implies she and her friends are drunk. Midnight streets are thought of as dangerous, unpredictable, and also even gives the feeling of loneliness, since streets are usually deserted late at night and when at high risk of danger.

The midnight streets are a metaphor for life. Although there’s freedom in being able to go out at night, the “streets” are always frightful, because you never know what is lurking around the corner.

As Lorde is also a huge Kanye West fan, it could be a reference to Streetlights, where West finds himself alone in the back of a cab at night wondering if he’s wasted his life. Lorde fears that she will feel the same when she has grown up.