ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
I will always think of Dua Lipa as the pop star who helped us dance through the pandemic.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LEVITATING")
DUA LIPA: (Singing) If you want to run away with me, I know a galaxy, and I can take you for a ride.
SHAPIRO: Her last album, "Future Nostalgia," came out when the world was locking down in March of 2020, and those tracks turned quarantine pods all over the world into private clubs.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LEVITATING")
LIPA: (Singing) If you're feeling like you need a little bit of company, you met me at the perfect time. You want me. I want you, baby. My sugarboo. I'm levitating.
SHAPIRO: Well, now she's touring her new album, "Radical Optimism." The Guardian newspaper just called her one of the world's great pop stars. And even though she can sell out massive stadiums, she recently came to NPR headquarters to play a much smaller venue - the Tiny Desk.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
LIPA: (Singing) To see my lovers in a good light. Don't want to do it just to be nice. Don't want to have to teach you how to love me right.
SHAPIRO: Dua Lipa, thank you for joining us here at NPR.
LIPA: Thank you so much for having me.
SHAPIRO: You said that one of the tracks you did in this performance - you sang in a way that you had never sung it before. And I would love to let listeners hear what it sounded like on the album.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HAPPY FOR YOU")
LIPA: (Singing) I must have loved you more than I ever knew. Didn't know I could ever feel. 'Cause I'm happy for you.
SHAPIRO: And now let's hear a little bit of what it sounded like when you did it just here at the Tiny Desk.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
LIPA: I'm not hurt. You got everything you deserve. Oh, I must have loved you more than I ever knew. I'm happy for you. And looking back now, I hope you see it. Even the hard parts were all for the best. I see where you're at now...
SHAPIRO: Tell us what that experience was like. What did you do? What did you feel?
LIPA: You're good at this, you know that?
(LAUGHTER)
LIPA: It was really special to reimagine the song and to take it kind of back to the music in it's kind of purest form, with no electronic production. It's just - it is what it is in the moment, and I think you just feel that song differently. You listen to the lyrics in a different way, and it was really fun to think about it and take it back to the basics.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
LIPA: (Singing) I must have loved you more than I ever knew. Didn't know I could ever feel. 'Cause I'm happy for you.
SHAPIRO: This is a simplistic question, but do you find it easier to sing to an anonymous audience of faceless thousands or a daylit crowd of office workers?
LIPA: (Laughter) I think maybe faceless thousands?
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
LIPA: In a weird way because, even though when I get up on stage and I recognize faces, and I see it, there's just so much happening. I'm dancing and I'm running and I'm moving, and I'm - you know, I'm talking. And when you're just stood there in front of the microphone and you just can see eye-to-eye with so many people, it makes it so much more intimate. And I crave moments like that - I do - because it's just very real. And I get those, like, sweaty palms and my heart's racing and - yeah, it's just a beautiful feeling.
SHAPIRO: The song we heard, "Happy For You," is a breakup song, but it's a joyful breakup song...
LIPA: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: ...Which speaks to the title of the album - "Radical Optimism." Is radical optimism something that comes naturally to you? Is it an aspirational title? Tell me about what it means to you.
LIPA: I think aspirational is a good way to put it. It's the way that I like to think that I lead my life. It's like rolling with the punches. If something's not going well, it's OK 'cause you'll find a way to pick yourself back up. I always think about how I feel in hindsight. And after I'm going through a difficult thing and then, a couple months later, I'm like, man, maybe I shouldn't have stressed myself out or upset myself as much as I did because everything works out in the end. And I think that mindset has kept me very grounded.
SHAPIRO: I think a lot of songwriters have used the phrase, if these walls could talk.
LIPA: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
LIPA: (Singing) But if these walls could talk, they'd say, enough. They'd say, give up.
SHAPIRO: But I'm not aware of any who have used it in quite the way that you use it (laughter).
LIPA: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
LIPA: (Singing) It's not supposed to hurt this much. Oh, if these walls could talk, they'd tell us to break up.
Well, I thought it was fun to personify the walls because no one knows you more than the four walls in your room. Or the way that maybe other people might perceive a relationship - like, they might look outwardly and be like, oh, everything's amazing. And, you know, they look so in love or whatever it is. And then in these four walls, it's, like, where all the truth comes out.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
LIPA: (Singing) They tell us, go and face your fears. It's getting worse the longer that we stay together. We call it love, but hate it here.
And I think those four walls are for everyone in whatever it is. Whether it's a love relationship, friendship, work thing - whatever it is, it's there, and it sees you in your most vulnerable, intimate self.
SHAPIRO: I also love that the phrase, "if these walls could talk," summons ideas of kind of syrupy nostalgia, idealism, and you turn it on its head and inject it with humor and, "they tell us to break up."
LIPA: Yeah, well, it's like your agony aunt is your walls.
SHAPIRO: Agony aunt is the advice columnist, is that right?
LIPA: Yes.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
LIPA: Exactly.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
SHAPIRO: So you ended on this great dance track, "Houdini," where the member of your band who had been playing the child's glockenspiel instead picked up a little egg shaker, and you got the whole NPR office dancing.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
LIPA: (Singing) I come and I go. Tell me all the ways you need me. I'm not here for long. Catch me or I go Houdini. I come and I go. Prove you've got the right to please me. Everybody knows, catch me or I go Houdini.
SHAPIRO: And I just imagine, when you were doing that in a sold-out arena, in a stadium, it must feel like you are conducting a symphony of tens of thousands of people. Can you speak to what that experience is like?
LIPA: It's riveting. It's the thing that keeps me up until 4 o'clock in the morning after a show because the adrenaline is so high. It's the thing that I have dreamt about my whole life. And so when I get up on stage and I get to perform these songs and see people reacting, it just blows me away night after night. And I love being on tour. I love performing these songs. I love kind of seeing just people singing along. Like, it really doesn't - it doesn't get old.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
LIPA: (Singing) Maybe you could cause a girl to change her ways. Do you think about it night and day?
For me and the shows that I like to do, it's like, how can I make sure that everyone's having as much fun as possible all the time?
SHAPIRO: That's a good mission.
LIPA: That's my mission in life...
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
LIPA: Is just have fun and make sure everyone else is having fun at the same time.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
LIPA: (Singing) I need something that'll make me believe. If you got it, baby, give it to me. Say, I come and I go. Tell me all the ways you need me. I'm not here for long.
SHAPIRO: Dua Lipa's latest album is "Radical Optimism." Thank you for bringing this dose of joy and fun to NPR and for talking with us.
LIPA: Thank you so much, Ari.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
LIPA: (Singing) Everybody knows. Catch me or I go Houdini. If you're good enough, you'll find a way. Maybe you could cause a girl to change her ways.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
And you can see Dua Lipa's Tiny Desk concert when it comes out tomorrow at NPR Music. You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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