Teenage girls the world over (myself included, though I’ve sadly had to renounce my teen status since) rejoiced in April when Olivia Rodrigo finally announced her third album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love. As with her previous lead singles, the build-up to the release of ‘Drop Dead’ later that month was defined by rumours surrounding a recent breakup – fans have scoured the lyrics for references to Louis Partridge, though with lines like “Pisces and a Gemini / But I think we might go really nice together,” one doesn’t necessarily need to look very hard.
Nonetheless, Rodrigo has been reasonably coy about the subject of the record as a whole, describing the album as one made up of “sad love songs,” and never directly referencing the relationship in interviews, leaving the rest of us to ponder what exactly she has in store for us. I’m writing this piece having literally just failed to secure tickets for Rodrigo’s tour next year, which frankly made me reconsider the entire venture, but my passion for ‘Drop Dead’, and Rodrigo’s discography in general, trumps all – so, I’m going to make the fatal mistake of predicting what might await us in this latest release.
“She perfectly captures the experience of that first rush of feelings”
On first listen, ‘Drop Dead’, which at this point I must confess is one of my favourite songs of all time, appears to be a quintessential love song. This marks a departure from her usual topics of heartbreak and teenage growing pains: ‘drivers license’ and ‘Vampire’, which kicked off the previous two Rodrigo eras, are unmistakably breakup songs, and although much of the speculation around the new album centres on her failed relationship with Partridge, she has taken a different approach to this most recent rollout by beginning with a much more upbeat lead single. She told Cosmopolitan that the song was inspired by a first date, and she perfectly captures the experience of that first rush of feelings, with dreamy synths and a soaring string accompaniment. However, she described the song upon its release as “the first chapter in the story,” which suggests that all might not be as it appears from the song’s jubilant tone.
Signs of this can be seen within ‘Drop Dead’ itself, if you look close enough. The lyrics reveal a deep fear, suggesting that what she’s actually articulating is closer to anxiety than real love. She speaks in absolutes throughout the song: “I hope you never finish that beer” becomes “If you let me stay the night / Well, I think I might just have to stay forever”. She repeatedly implies that the relationship is fated, with lines like “It’s feminine intuition / ’Cause I always had a vision of us standing like this”, but that doesn’t stop her uncertainty about the entire thing shining through: “I’m paranoid I made you up”. The music video embodies this panicked obsession: Rodrigo runs around the grounds of the Palace of Versailles as though trying to escape her all-consuming feelings. That she was allowed to film at such an iconic location (which has, until now, been notoriously strict in who it permits to use it as a backdrop), the first artist to be permitted to film specifically in the royal apartments, is testament to just how much she has outgrown her days as a Disney star, and found a musical identity of her own.
“Rodrigo sprints through the corridors wearing 80s-esque over-the-ear headphones”
Her songwriting has matured with every album, and her recent work appears to be no exception. Listening to ‘Drop Dead’ for the first time, I felt like Rodrigo had genuinely read my mind. She articulates a universal feeling with startling precision, and her references to various different eras of pop culture help the whole thing feel timeless. Sure, she wrote the song at age 22 about a particular English actor with a penchant for Guinness, but the music video is set in a 17th century palace, and Rodrigo sprints through the corridors wearing 80s-esque over-the-ear headphones, in scenes which evoke that one moment in The Crown where a young Diana rollerskates around Buckingham Palace, equally uneasy about her future.
The other song Rodrigo has revealed from the album, ‘begged’, marks a return to her angsty roots, as she sings about being left wanting more from her emotionally detached partner. The song could not be more different to ‘Drop Dead’, though presumably she sings about the same relationship. Her grand vision of a fairytale love story in the former is replaced by romanticisation of small, basic gestures from her partner: “All that I want is to sit here silently / And watch movies on TV / What a shame you’re not here”.
“She also utilises the language of water to emphasise the depth of her sorrow”
The lyrics use the same absolutist language as her previous single: she describes a need to “know undoubtedly / That you just have eyes for me,” and laments that her partner is oblivious to her “endless well of needs”. At the same time, she downplays her emotions to her partner, pretending to be “cool and forgiving” despite receiving very little in return. She also utilises the language of water to emphasise the depth of her sorrow. She is “an anchor in the ocean,” “fight[ing] back the waves” of her discontentment. Both this song and ‘Drop Dead’ share the sense that Rodrigo is out of control: in the former, she feels stuck accepting the bare minimum from the person she loves, while in the latter she has been struck by overwhelming feelings of an intensity she has never felt before.
Her performance of the track on SNL in early May embodied the album title’s juxtaposition. In direct contrast to the ‘Drop Dead’ music video, Rodrigo is static in this performance: she sits motionless on the swing from her album cover, having been brought back down to earth by her partner’s indifference. The lyrics are much more clear-headed – she acknowledges that regardless of the affection she is shown, “it’s not quite enough when I know that to get it I begged”. This, it seems, is the type of song we can expect to make up most of the album: it’s the type of song she does best. Much to the devastation of those of us who were hoping for love songs, Rodrigo seems to have found her niche in heartbreaking ballads about the agonies of rejection.
“Rodrigo has found her niche in heartbreaking ballads about the agonies of rejection”
Despite her reluctance to directly reference the relationships that inspire her songs, the marketing for the album thus far clearly plays into fan speculation about what actually happened between Rodrigo and Partridge. The album cover itself appears to draw inspiration from The Swing, an 18th century painting in the Rococo style, which, incidentally, was itself a reaction against the architectural movement that inspired the Palace of Versailles. The visual art of the album then, for those of us who do our research, serves to represent both a rejection of the music video’s regal location, and the too-good-to-be-true relationship Rodrigo sings about from within it. The chronically online among us were quick to point out that Partridge had actually posted a picture of The Swing on Instagram in March (though in fairness, it’s possible this was just a coincidence – whether he was referencing her or vice versa, I suppose we will never know). Even more implausibly, some pointed out that the Palace of Versailles was built under the reign of a king named Louis…
Now, I’m not suggesting I believe Rodrigo would be quite so on the nose, but Easter eggs like this have largely driven the fan discussion about the upcoming album, and Rodrigo has clearly chosen to fan the flames. One of the alternative music videos for ‘Drop Dead’ is packed with references to various aspects of British culture – red phone boxes, black cabs, pints of Guinness, and a range of London landmarks. In interviews, she has described the album as being partly inspired by London, and “experiences that I’ve had” there. One can’t help but see the connection.
“The album as a whole, then, seems set to tell a love story in reverse”
Though, this is perhaps not particularly surprising. Rodrigo seems to pride herself on her confessional songwriting, and any artist following in the footsteps of Taylor Swift, whose penchant for writing about romance has led to every single interaction being dissected for all the world to see, is forced to suffer the same fate. Rodrigo has been subjected to this to a particularly vicious degree at times: the release of ‘drivers license’, believed to be about ex-boyfriend Joshua Bassett, led to fan speculation about a love triangle between the two and Sabrina Carpenter, though in hindsight this was largely manufactured by people on the internet with not enough to do. Rodrigo walks a difficult line between using personal experiences as inspiration, and maintaining a semblance of privacy, which explains her reluctance to disclose who exactly a song as complementary as ‘Drop Dead’ might be about. Nonetheless, part of the ‘hype’ for the album will inevitably, at least for a subsection of her fanbase, be drawn from continuous (and, frankly, unwarranted) conjecture about Rodrigo’s personal life.
The album as a whole, then, seems set to tell a love story in reverse. Rodrigo will take us from the high of the very first date, right through the gradual breakdown of the relationship. “[S]ad love songs,” as she characterises them, are an interesting new approach – one might expect one or the other, particularly from Rodrigo, who is best known for her melancholic ballads. But, if the first two songs are anything to go by, it seems she’s pulled it off. Is that the album of the year I hear?
