"Glory and Gore" is a song by New Zealand singer Lorde from her debut studio album, Pure Heroine (2013). The song was released on 11 March 2014 as the album's fifth single by Lava Records and Republic Records. The track was written by Lorde and its producer, Joel Little. "Glory and Gore" is an electropop song influenced by chillwave and hip hop music. It speaks about modern society's fascination with violence and celebrity culture. The song was met with a mixed reception from critics, and reached numbers sixty-eight and nine on the United States Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Rock Songs, respectively. In 2014, "Glory and Gore" was used in an advertisement for the second season of the History television series Vikings.

As with the rest of Pure Heroine, "Glory and Gore" was written by Lorde and Joel Little, recorded at Golden Age Studios and produced, mixed and engineered by Little. "Glory and Gore" is a chillwave and hip hop-influenced electropop ballad, instrumented by pulsing synthesisers. According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by EMI Music Publishing, it is set in a moderate tempo of 72 beats per minute. It is written in the key of F minor, and follows the chord progression A♭–Fm–Cm–B♭m. Lorde's vocals range from E♭₃ to E♭₅. Throughout the song, she uses black satire to express disdain towards modern emphasis on violence, and compares celebrity culture to gladiatorial combat. This is exemplified in the lyric "Glory and gore go hand-in-hand/That's why we're making headlines." It continues the derision of popular culture of "Team", the preceding song on Pure Heroine. "Glory and Gore" also portrays an empowerment theme; PopMatters' Evan Sawdey described it as a "dark" version of Katy Perry's "Roar" (2013).

...
Wikipedia