Just lovely

So where do songs begin? In states of heaviness and cloudiness, in moments of obscure magnetism. A lonely Thundercat gets drunk; now he’s even lonelier. Lorde, during a “wild and fluorescent” summer in her native New Zealand, has one of those verbally constricted, charged-with-yearning conversations at a party. Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham needs to let his bandmate/ex-girlfriend Stevie Nicks know how he’s feeling; his guitar starts chugging and smoldering with aggrieved punk-pop energy. So Thundercat writes “Them Changes”—a work of squelching melancholy, patterned around a splashy Isley Brothers hi-hat. Lorde writes the erotically cranked “Sober.” This is how inspiration works. A word suggests itself, then another. A strand of tune floats by. Into the khaos—the dark jostle of instincts, the dim forms, the undeclared sensations—comes the logos: the transforming spirit. Art breathes upon the waters. And then you find that your drummer can’t play it.