Like many young singer/songwriters, Olivia Rodrigo is very active on TikTok. According to Rodrigo, the platform is good for more than just entertainment. It can also be a source of songwriting inspiration.
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In a new interview with Hits Radio, Rodrigo talked about how the social media platform helped her pen the track “Traitor” from her debut album, SOUR.
“I wrote ‘Traitor’ in my bedroom when I was very sad one day, and I actually came up with the idea for a song when I was looking at a TikTok,” Rodrigo told Hits (quote via Music News). “I saw a girl who was kind of going through a similar situation to what I was going through, and she was kind of feeling these same feelings that I had been going through for a while. For some reason watching her talk about how she felt about it gave me some clarity on how I felt.
“Super random but TikTok can sometimes be very productive – you heard it here first,” Rodrigo continued.
[RELATED: The Polished Songwriting Team of Olivia Rodrigo and Dan Nigro]
Rodrigo’s comments come as she prepares to release her sophomore album, Guts. The album is set for release on September 8. She recently spoke about two artists who were a major source of inspiration for the record: Jack White and St. Vincent.
“Your only job is to write music that you would want to hear on the radio,” White said to Rodrigo in a letter. St. Vincent later added: “I’ve never met anyone so young and so effortlessly self-possessed. [Rodrigo] knows who she is and what she wants — and doesn’t seem to be in any way afraid of voicing that. And just a really lovely girl too.”
Rodrigo has already shared two songs from the impending record, “Vampire” and “Bad Idea Right?”
“‘Bad Idea Right?’ started with us making a joke song about me hooking up with an ex-boyfriend, but
then we realized we were actually onto something,” Rodrigo said in a statement. “We were throwing the weirdest things at the wall—in one of the choruses there’s a part that sounds like an instrument in the background, but it’s me gradually screaming louder and louder.”
Rodrigo worked with her longtime collaborators Dan Nigro for the production and Petra Collins for the music videos of the two already-released tracks.
(Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
