Royals | Lorde

First watch the clip, listen to the song and read along with the lyrics.

I’ve never seen a diamond in the flesh …

I cut my teeth on wedding rings in the movies … [as opposed to where?]

And I’m not proud of my address

In the torn up town, no post code envy …[why not?]

Chorus:

But every song’s like

Gold teeth …

Grey Goose …

Tripping in the bathroom …

Bloodstains …

Ball gowns …[meaning?]

Trashing the hotel room…

We don’t care, we’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams

But everybody’s like

Crystal …

Maybach…

Diamonds on your timepiece …

Jet planes

Islands

Tigers on a gold leash …

We don’t care, we aren’t caught up in your love affair … [who does “your” refer to?]

And we’ll never be royals (royals)

It don’t run in our blood

That kind of lux just ain’t for us, we crave a different kind of buzz _…

Let me be your ruler (ruler) …

You can call me queen bee …

And baby I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule

Let me live that fantasy

My friends and I we’ve cracked the code …

We count our dollars on the train to the party

And everyone who knows us knows

That we’re fine with this, we didn’t come from money …

Chorus

ooh ooh oh ooh

We’re better than we’ve every dreamed

And I’m in love with being queen

ooh ooh oh ooh

Life is great without a care

We aren’t caught up in your love affair …

And we’ll never be royals (royals) …

Assignment:

Now it’s time to find out what the song is really about!

Try to write down what each underlined word or phrase means.

Talk about it with your neighbor and / or use the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary to look up unfamiliar words [google oald and use your smart phones] 

What is Lorde’s message to us? Do you agree with her? Let’s have a discussion now.

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