For singer/songwriter Olivia Rodrigo, one of the greatest joys in life comes from deliberately tapping into her deepest heartache. āThereās nothing like sitting at the piano in my bedroom and writing a really sad song,ā she says. āItās truly my favorite thing in the world.ā
With that, Oliviaās debut single via Geffen Records, ādrivers license,ā 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 (āYou said forever, now I drive alone past your streetā). āWhen I came up with ādrivers licenseā I was going through a heartbreak that was so confusing to me, so multifaceted,ā she recalls. āPutting all those feelings into a song made everything seem so much simpler and clearerāand at the end of the day, I think thatās really the whole purpose of songwriting.ā
On ādrivers license,ā Olivia showcases the nuanced vocal command sheās 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 sheād spend hours sketching lyrics in a notebook sheād won at an arcade. āI was making up songs before I could even form coherent sentences,ā she says. āI was always so obsessed with it and sang about the most random things, like getting lost from my parents in the supermarket.ā When she was seven Olivia began playing piano, though not completely by choice. āMy dad made me take lessons and I hated every second of itāto the point where Iād cry before every lessonābut now Iām so thankful,ā she notes. After landing a role on the comedy series āBizaardvark,ā 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). āOnce I started taking it seriously, Iād just write all the time,ā she says. āI have a lot of trouble focusing on schoolwork and in other areas of my life, but when Iām working on a song itās like time stops and I canāt think of anything else. Itās magical.ā
Though Olivia mostly kept her songs to herself at firstāoccasionally posting snippets on social mediaāshe experienced a major turning point during her first season as the star of Disney+ās āHigh School Musical: The Musical: The Series.ā After showrunner Tim Federle heard a song sheād shared on Instagram, he enlisted Olivia to create a track for the showās fourth episode. āI 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 theyād given me,ā she says. The result: a heart-on-sleeve piano ballad called āAll I Want,ā a gold-certified hit that cracked the Billboard Hot 100, emerged as the showās top-streamed song, and amassed more than 200 million global streams.
āFor me the goal of all music is to take these complicated feelings and externalize them in a way that makes people feel seenābut then when someone tells me that one of my songs resonates with them, it makes me feel seen too,ā she says. āItās 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.ā
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