Lorde releases first single in nearly three years for Talking Heads tribute album

Lorde has released her first new music in nearly three years - a cover of Talking Heads' 1978 single 'Take Me to the River'.

The single, released on Friday, is part of a tribute album to the Talking Heads live record Stop Making Sense.

According to Variety, the tribute album will also feature covers by Paramore, Miley Cyrus, The National and Girl in Red.

It is not yet known when the album, titled Everyone's Getting Involved, will be out.

The single is Lorde's first since 'Mood Ring', off her third studio album Solar Power, was released in 2021.

In a note on Instagram on Friday, Lorde remembered the first time she ever heard Talking Heads, at the age of 12.

She felt a "constant burning urge to express myself" but could not manage to do so, she wrote.

Her mother, poet Sonja Yelich, showed her Talking Heads performing 'Take Me to the River' on YouTube.

Singer David Byrne was "moving like I've never seen anyone move, and his eyes are rolling back in his head", Lorde wrote.

"I feel a portal open between me and the screen. Humour, lust, rhythm and ritual course through me.

"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."

Immediately after viewing the clip, Lorde watched Stop Making Sense for the first time.

She said she was "truly changed" by the experience.

Lorde wrote that her cover was recorded and mixed over the course of "a few days" in Los Angeles.

"It's my interpretation of pixellated spiritual experience. We did it fast, I didn't let myself tidy it up too much, it had to feel young and imperfect.

"It's beyond a great honour to be part of this compilation."

Talking Heads' version of 'Take Me to the River' was itself a cover - the original song was written by Al Green and released in 1974.

RNZ