Kiwi star Lorde has released her first single in almost three years — a cover that will be part of an upcoming Talking Heads tribute album.
The hitmaker announced the release of her cover of the 1978 single Take me to the River on Friday.
The track is the singer’s contribution to the upcoming tribute album produced by studio A24 which pays homage to the Talking Heads live album Stop Making Sense.
Other artists who will appear on the project, which commemorates the 40th anniversary and cinema re-release of the album, include Miley Cyrus, Paramore and Kevin Abstract.
Lorde shared a message on her Instagram stories on Friday recalling when she heard the song for the first time in 2008.
“I’m twelve years old, eyes painted black, jaw blasted with acne,” the Royals singer wrote.
“My bedroom is a nest of posters, broken toys, street signs. I’ve kissed with tongue.”
She said she was beginning to feel a “constant burning urge to express myself” at the time.
She continued that her mother brought a laptop into her room one night to play a “grainy” YouTube video in the hopes of inspiring her.
A “band from another time” was performing on a television show.
“The dark haired man is singing a song about wanting someone, not being sure why. He is a preacher, a controlled fire, a wild animal. He’s moving like I’ve never seen anyone move, and his eyes are rolling back in his head.
“I don’t understand what I’m feeling, but I do understand that the band in the grainy video live with the same strangeness that I do,” she wrote.
Her own version of the Talking Heads song was recorded in “a few days” in Los Angeles.
“It’s my interpretation of that pixellated spiritual experience.”
She said she “did it fast” and didn’t let herself “tidy it up too much” as it had to feel “young and imperfect.”
“It’s beyond a great honour to be part of this compilation.”