Olivia Rodrigo is gearing up for the release of her highly-anticipated debut album Sour. A fair amount of buzz has been created around Rodrigo’s songwriting career after her No. 1 debut single “Drivers License” broke several chart records. The track was originally written as a heartbreak anthem, but Rodrigo now says her opinion on the song has changed since its massive success.
Rodrigo recently sat down for an interview with Nylon about her burgeoning songwriting career. Describing how her feelings about “Drivers License” are different now, Rodrigo said:
“One thing that did change a lot is the pride and how empowered I feel when I listen to ‘Drivers license.’ Before, it was like, ‘Ah, it’s a sad song that I wrote to manifest what I was going through,’ and now, after seeing the reaction that it had, I feel like that vulnerability is really, really powerful. It makes me happy, and not depressed.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Rodrigo said the love triangle drama that exploded after the single’s release didn’t faze her. However, she did go back and revise some song lyrics on the album to make them more vague. “Broad storytelling just isn’t fun in any art medium,” she said. “So yeah, there have been some songs where I’ve gone back and made revisions to make it a little less specific because sometimes, I think, the drama takes away from the songwriting. I completely understand people’s curiosity. I get so curious about my favorite songwriters and the meaning behind their songs. But songwriting and singer-songwriter music in particular is so special because you can be as specific as you want, but there’s still [space to] fill in the blanks. And lots of the time, people will fill in the blanks with details from their own life. If they don’t want to, they can fill it in with details of my life and if that’s what makes it impactful to them, that’s fine. As long as the song means something to you, it’s all good.”
Sour is out 5/21 via Interscope. Pre-order it here.