Music
Did Olivia Rodrigo Go Through A Breakup While Making Her New Album?
In a new interview, the singer revealed she changed some songs to make them “more sad and creepy.”
Olivia Rodrigo may have a good reason to be sad for a girl so in love. In a new interview with the New York Times’ Popcast podcast, the singer said she changed her upcoming new album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, by writing more breakup songs than intended and going back to make other tracks much sadder — and even “creepy.”
Hosts Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli revealed that Rodrigo’s new album follows the narrative of a love story that ends in ruins. True to form, Rodrigo didn’t confirm her split from Louis Partridge, which has been rumored since December. However, she did say the tracklist reflected her real life, being separated into two sides: “girl so in love” and “you seem pretty sad.”
“For the most part, it is chronological and in the order in which it happened in my life and it’s the first time that’s happened,” she remarked. “I write songs to process my feelings, so every day when I come and I sit at the piano or I go to the studio, it’s like, ‘What is burning in me to say right now?’”
She also said that the final product differed from her initial vision thanks to an unexpected wave of sadness, fueling breakup speculation further. “As someone who was very known for writing breakup songs and being angry and sad, I wanted to prove to myself that I didn’t have to be miserable to write a song that I liked,” she said.
However, even from the beginning, she wanted to embrace the most depressing aspects of love before that became a reality. “I was always kind of curious about trying to mine these more depressing feelings out of these love songs,” she said. “I think initially, I thought that was what the record was going to be, just all love songs but trying to inject some sadness into them. And then obviously sadness in a real or more whole way crept its way into the end.”
Rodrigo said she and her collaborator, Dan Nigro, wrote more traditional breakup songs towards the end of the creative process, which inspired them to reevaluate some of their happier fare that was created. “We had the fun challenge of going back and actually tweaking some of the love songs on the record and making them a little more honest and more sad and creepy,” she said.
In fact, she said that “Honeybee” might be the saddest song on the record despite residing on the “girl so in love” half. The album comes out on June 12, but maybe stock up on tissues now.
