Olivia Rodrigo shamelessly bellowed I want to get him back! in “get him back!” the third single off her highly anticipated sophomore album, GUTS. The anthemic song she co-wrote with frequent collaborator and producer Dan Nigro boasts lyrics that are equal parts comedic and emotional as she lays into an ex-boyfriend who did her dirty. But the song stemmed from a moment of insecurity.
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“We were writing all day and we wrote a song that I didn’t like and I had a total breakdown and I was like, ‘I can’t write songs I’m so bad at this,’ being really negative,” Rodrigo explains of the writing process to Zane Lowe of Apple Music. “Then we took a break and came back and we wrote ‘get him back!’ and it’s one of my favorite songs. So it just goes to show you, never give up,” she laughs, adding that the song was “super fun to write” and that she particularly likes the chorus. “It feels kind of sticky to me and feels like something I would want a crowd to sing.”
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The first verse describes her ex as someone with a lethal combination of an ego and a temper / And a wandering eye. Yet she also looks back fondly on his “weird friends,” the parties, and endless fun nights. Caught between the feelings of love and hate, Rodrigo gets to the heart of the matter in the chorus when she belts: I wanna get him back / I wanna make him really jealous, wanna make him feel bad / Oh, I wanna get him back / ‘Cause then again, I really miss him, and it makes me real sad / Oh, I want sweet revenge / And I want him again / I want to get him back.
The superstar revealed on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that she had to tone down some of the NSFW lyrics, as the original line in “get him back!” was Cause I miss the way he kisses / And the way he grabbed my ass, which she ultimately changed to Cause I miss the way he kisses / And the way he made me laugh.
“I had such a desire to live and experience things and make mistakes and grow after SOUR came out. I kind of felt this pressure to be this girl that I thought everyone expected me to be,” she shared of the meaning of the song to The New York Times. “I think because of that pressure, maybe I did things that maybe I shouldn’t have – dated people that I shouldn’t have.”
Like several of Rodrigo’s other songs, “get him back!” was a global hit. It peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart and No. 11 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. GUTS is nominated for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2024 Grammy Awards, while other hit tracks “vampire” and “ballad of a homeschooled girl” scooped up multiple nods.
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