Newsletter (2017-2018) April 2018 Newsletter | Page 13

from me. Even so, we became friends. As I grow
older, I cannot agree more with the idea that
friends are used for love and praise, not for crit-
icism. I feel that it is wrong to judge my friends’
decisions. Although we have been raised in dif-
ferent ways, all I know is that we grow together
and spend a lot of time together. We bot h cele-
brate and make fun of each other; we accept each
other, including accepting each other’s mistakes.
Lorde’s “Ribs”:
An Anthem of
Adolescence
By Sing Cheung
“I’ve never felt more alone / It feels so scary get-
Here are some of the “old friend principles” that ting old,” Lorde confessed in the song “Ribs”,
I have established to maintain a good relation- about the insecurities she was feeling in adoles-
ship with friends that we have known for a long cence.
time. To follow the “old friend principles”, there
Lorde is a 21-year-old New Zealand singer-song-
must only be love and no harm.
writer and a two-time Grammy winner. You
1. Acceptance. Accept the frustration and de- probably recall the time when the Grammy-win-
pression of your friend. She is the master of her ning smash hit “Royals” was overplayed on the
radio in 2013 (your brain has likely already re-
own life. She is not born to please you.
trieved the chorus—“and we’ll never be royals
2. Listening. A listening ear is a sign of accep- / it don’t run in our blood”––as I mentioned it).
tance. Your friend’s complaints should not be There are, however, many hidden gems from
corrected, criticised, rejected, or attacked by you. Lorde’s debut album Pure Heroine (2013), and
Just like a general, she came back home, took off “Ribs” is undoubtedly one of them.
her armour, and fell asleep next to you. She feels
The opening verse tells us that she was throwing
safe and protected when she is with you.
a house party, at which a friend of hers spilt a
3. Communication. I will face my friend sin- drink all over her and a song released in 2002
cerely and share everything with her if she is lis- called “Lover’s Spit” was being repeated. At first
glance “Ribs” was nothing different from a par-
tening to me.
ty song composed by other mainstream artists,
My dearest friends, I love you. Even so, I will and yet the action of spilling a drink subtly sug-
still make fun of you. I will remember your em- gests a sense of irreparability, while the allusion
barrassment and retell those moments from time to “Lover’s Spit”, in which there is the line “you
to time. When we are together, we communicate know it’s time that we grow old”, subtly fore-
with true feelings and bare each other’s hearts to shadows the upcoming line in Lorde’s verse “it
each other, since the time for us to meet is always drives you crazy getting old”.
short. In a blink of an eye, the holiday is over,
and we will go our separate ways.
Here, the singer deals with one central issue in
adolescence: no matter how many times we try,
Thus, please treasure your friends and spend we cannot escape from the process of growing
time with them. Friends are like blood; they will up, and once you leave your childhood behind,
always accompany you as long as your heart there is no chance of going back. I am still aston-
ished and overwhelmed by the complexity and
beats.
authenticity of this 4-line verse, and there is even
more to come in the song.
Yetta is a student at
EdUHK studying
Communication
Psychology.
“This dream isn’t feeling sweet”. When we were
children, we dreamt about who we would be
and what we would do after reaching adoles-
cence and, later, adulthood. Sadly, these fanta-
sies turned out to be not so sweet, but neither
were they bitter. We expected complete freedom,
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APRIL 2018