Liability

"Liability" is a song recorded by New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde, from her second studio album Melodrama (2017). Lorde co-wrote and co-produced the track with Jack Antonoff. It was released on 10 March 2017, by Lava and Republic Records as the album's first promotional single. It is a pop piano ballad, which is accompanied with organs and guitar strums in the background. The track's lyrics detail the consequences and scrutiny Lorde's friends received from the media as a result of her new-found fame and the effect it had on her emotional health. Music critics praised the song's lyrical content and Lorde's vocal delivery; some noted its dramatic sonic shift from the album's lead single "Green Light" (2017), which was released a week prior. The song had minor chart placements in the United States and the United Kingdom, placing at 78 and 84, respectively. She performed "Liability" for the first time on Saturday Night Live in New York in 2017 and subsequently at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California. It was part of the set list of her Melodrama World Tour (2017–2018). Swedish singer Tove Styrke released a cover of the song titled "Liability (Demo)" to streaming services on 14 December 2017. Background and development Lorde told a crowd at a secret iHeartRadio concert she held in Los Angeles in August 2017 that "Liability" was inspired by a night she became "overcome with anger and emotion". She walked before ordering an Uber to take her home. She cried as she listened to Rihanna's song "Higher" from her 2016 album Anti because of a feeling of "being 'too much' for somebody." Self-proclaimed as her first ballad, Lorde described the songwriting process of "Liability" as "therapeutic" as she felt that she said everything about herself that could hurt her "coming from other people".