Olivia Rodrigo broke into the music world with her debut single “Drivers License” in 2021. A few months later, she released her debut album, Sour, to praise from listeners and critics alike. Earlier this year, she released her sophomore effort Guts. Last night, she and her collaborator Dan Nigro performed an intimate concert in which they revealed the stories behind many of the songs from her latest album.
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According to Billboard, Rodrigo transformed The Theater at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles into her own little world. The setting was complete with floral arrangements, mini lipstick tubes that looked like pill capsules, and a custom taco truck. During the hour-long show for American Express cardholders, Rodrigo and her producer/co-writer pulled back the curtain on their creative process.
“We made this album together over the course of a year,” Rodrigo told the crowd. “We haven’t played these songs for anyone, really,” she added. Nigro joked, “And we get to tell stories that will make Olivia very uncomfortable.”
Then, they got into the eight-song set, telling the story behind each as they went.
“Vampire”
Rodrigo released “Vampire” as the lead single from Guts. During the show, Nigro said that it wasn’t an easy choice. He called it “one of the hardest decisions we’ve had to make together.” He went on to say that finishing the song only got harder after they chose it as the single. Rodrigo said they made more than 20 versions of the track before finally finishing it in January.
“Lacy”
The duo said they found inspiration for this song in an unlikely place: a New York bookstore. There, Nigro bought a stack of books. In that stack was Wading in Waist-High Water: The Lyrics of Fleet Foxes. The book, penned by Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold, contains lyrics to 55 songs. Many of the songs, they discovered started as poems.
Rodrigo had just finished a poetry class at the University of Southern California. During her time in the class, she wrote a poem called “Lacy.” They transformed that poem into a song.
“Ballad of a Homeschool Girl”
The duo revealed that this song came about while Rodrigo was babysitting Nigro’s baby Saoirse. This happened because Nigro’s wife tested positive for COVID-19. As a result, their nanny wouldn’t come into the home to watch the child. So, the little one joined the duo in the studio.
She bounced along to the music and was generally a happy baby the whole time. However, after feeding the tyke, Rodrigo bounced the baby a little too vigorously and she spewed like an overly shaken beer can. “The silver lining was getting this song out of it,” the singer/songwriter said.
“The Grudge”
Rodrigo revealed that The Smiths inspired this song. She was listening to the band on the way to the studio when the song “I Know It’s Over” came on. The lyric It takes courage to be kind stuck with her. More importantly, it made her think, “What if I don’t want to have courage and don’t want to be kind?”
In the end, the lyric from “I Know It’s Over” inspired the line It takes strength to forgive / but I don’t feel strong.
“Teenage Dream”
Rodrigo and Nigro chose this song to close Guts. During the intimate concert, she revealed that she wrote the song in the same key as “Hope Ur OK,” the album closer from Sour. Additionally, Nigro pointed out that his baby appears on this track. However, she didn’t get credit.
“Get Him Back!”
Rodrigo and Nigro were working hard on Guts. When the time came to put this song together, the singer was having a particularly hard day. Before heading to the studio, the duo chatted with Nigro’s father who gave them some advice. He told them that some of the best songs are written with only two chords.
So, the duo tried the two-chord approach and failed, Nigro said. “We tried and failed — but wrote something we really liked with three chords.”
“All-American Bitch”
Rodrigo revealed that she had been obsessed with the game Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board since she was a kid. Her mom used to tell her stories about sleepovers where she and her friends would lift one another with a single finger. The singer/songwriter said the game was the “perfect way to encapsulate impossible standards as a girl and woman.”
She wrote the song and sent it to Nigro. The producer said hearing it for the first time was a “holy shit moment.” He added that he instantly knew it would be the album opener. More importantly, he believed it would be the track that tied the album of “super fun uptempo songs” and “super serious songs” together.
Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for MTV
