For singer/songwriter Olivia Rodrigo, one of the greatest joys in life comes from deliberately tapping into her deepest heartache. โThereโs nothing like sitting at the piano in my bedroom and writing a really sad song,โ she says. โItโs truly my favorite thing in the world.โ
With that, Oliviaโs debut single via Geffen Records, โdrivers license,โ is a modern epic and brilliant balance of unfiltered outpouring and graceful specificity. With its radiant harmonies and kinetic percussion, the piano-driven, alt-pop song spins a vivid portrait of driving aimlessly through the suburbs and longing for an ex-love, a sentiment Olivia precisely conveys in her pensive lyrics (โYou said forever, now I drive alone past your streetโ). โWhen I came up with โdrivers licenseโ I was going through a heartbreak that was so confusing to me, so multifaceted,โ she recalls. โPutting all those feelings into a song made everything seem so much simpler and clearerโand at the end of the day, I think thatโs really the whole purpose of songwriting.โ
On โdrivers license,โ Olivia showcases the nuanced vocal command sheโs honed since taking up singing as a little girl. Growing up in Southern California, Olivia first discovered her love of songwriting at the age of 12, when sheโd spend hours sketching lyrics in a notebook sheโd won at an arcade. โI was making up songs before I could even form coherent sentences,โ she says. โI was always so obsessed with it and sang about the most random things, like getting lost from my parents in the supermarket.โ When she was seven Olivia began playing piano, though not completely by choice. โMy dad made me take lessons and I hated every second of itโto the point where Iโd cry before every lessonโbut now Iโm so thankful,โ she notes. After landing a role on the comedy series โBizaardvark,โ Olivia added guitar to her repertoire and soon immersed herself in learning the craft of songwriting, in part by studying the lyrics of Taylor Swift (her number-one influence). โOnce I started taking it seriously, Iโd just write all the time,โ she says. โI have a lot of trouble focusing on schoolwork and in other areas of my life, but when Iโm working on a song itโs like time stops and I canโt think of anything else. Itโs magical.โ
Though Olivia mostly kept her songs to herself at firstโoccasionally posting snippets on social mediaโshe experienced a major turning point during her first season as the star of Disney+โs โHigh School Musical: The Musical: The Series.โ After showrunner Tim Federle heard a song sheโd shared on Instagram, he enlisted Olivia to create a track for the showโs fourth episode. โI remember it was the last day of my sophomore year and I was in the middle of finals, and I had to go write a song based on this prompt theyโd given me,โ she says. The result: a heart-on-sleeve piano ballad called โAll I Want,โ a gold-certified hit that cracked the Billboard Hot 100, emerged as the showโs top-streamed song, and amassed more than 200 million global streams.
โFor me the goal of all music is to take these complicated feelings and externalize them in a way that makes people feel seenโbut then when someone tells me that one of my songs resonates with them, it makes me feel seen too,โ she says. โItโs so inspiring to see my music affect people and maybe help them to feel less alone, and I just want to keep doing that for the rest of my life.โ
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