Tennis Court is from Lorde's 2013 debut album Pure Heroine.
The song is a follow up to her hit song, "Royals", and was released by Universal Music Group as the
album's second single. Lorde and Joel Little co-wrote "Tennis Court," an electronica-tinged art pop song.
Lyrically the song discusses Lordes "newfound fame", Lorde calls to show people "how little we care", a
"different kind of typical teen rebellion".
The songs concept introduced "between fame and a more innocent time";
"My head's filling up fast with wicked games/ How can I f**k with fun again when I'm known?".
Despite the track's title, the New Zealander doesn't actually play tennis. "I've always been really
fascinated by the visual concept of the tennis court," she told MTV News. "Then also there's a
tennis court in my hometown where me and my friends would hang out when we were kids, right up until we were teenagers, and that was just a symbol that felt kind of nostalgic to me."
Little recalled to Billboard magazine how this song found Lorde's songwriting maturing. "Up until that point,
she would bring Lyrics and we would take inspiration from there as to where to go with the music,"
he explained. "But this was one where I started putting the music together and we came up with melodies
over the top, and she wrote to the melody. As she was developing in songwriting, that became more
of an option."
"That song was one where we had everything except the chorus," Little continued. "She was sitting in the back
of the room while I was working on the music and she was saying, 'I think I've got a chorus idea.' I asked,
'Can I hear it?' and she said, 'No, no, no.' She wouldn't sing it to me and then once she had it,
she basically sang the entire chorus as you hear it now. I was like, 'Holy s--t, this is seriously good.'
This was the first time she had this fully-formed, amazing idea for a chorus. This is, I don't
know how long into the process, but it was when I was like, 'This girl is going to be
an amazing songwriter, or has turned into one in a really short amount of time.'
Then I just added the 'yeahs' and we tweaked a couple things here and there."
From the Album:
Pure Heroine (2013)
B-side:
"Swingin Party"
Released:
June 7th, 2013
Format:
Digital download, Vinyl
Recorded:
late 2012 to early 2013;
at Golden Age Studios,
Auckland, New Zealand
Genre:
Electronica, trip hop, chillwave, art pop
Length:
3:18
Writers:
Ella Yelich O'Connor
Joel Little
Producer:
Joel Little
Music video:
"Tennis Court" on YouTube
The official video for "Tennis Court" was directed by Joel Kefali and released on Lorde's official
VEVO account on 23 June 2013. The music video is a single shot of Lorde wearing heavy make-up and
making expressive faces to the camera while singing only the background Lyrics.
Lorde Tour Dates: