Olivia Rodrigo is telling her side of the story.
2021 saw the 18-year-old performer has become a recurring name on music charts with hit songs from her debut album Sour, which dropped earlier this year. However, she also received criticism about some of her popular tracks bearing similarities with songs from other artists.
In a recent interview with Teen Vogue, Olivia opened up about trying to navigate songwriting with the business side of the music industry.
“Writing songs about how I feel has always been easy and fun for me, and I think the business side of music has been something I’ve had a harder time learning,” she shared.
“I’ve been sort of growing through that this year, but I’ve just been trying to remember that I write songs because I love them,” she continued. “I feel lucky I get to do that and be a songwriter and a performer for a living… At the end of the day, I feel it doesn’t have too much to do with me.”
Over the past few months, Olivia made headlines when she retroactively gave songwriting credits to artists including Taylor Swift and Paramore – likely as a result of interpolating their past songs, which involves using parts of it and adding her own spin to use it in a new way.
“I think it’s disappointing to see people take things out of context and discredit any young woman’s work,” Olivia told the magazine. “But at the end of the day I’m just really proud and happy to say that my job is being a songwriter…All music is inspired by each other. Obviously, I write all of my lyrics from my heart and my life first. I came up with the lyrics and the melody for ‘good 4 u’ one morning in the shower.”
In July, Taylor, Jack Antonoff, and St. Vincent (Annie Clark) were added as songwriters for her track “Déjà Vu” in July. She also credited Taylor and Jack on her song “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back.” (She previously explained to Zach Sang how she interpolated TSwift’s “New Year’s Day”: “I came up with the ‘1 Step Forward’ concept and I sort of wrote a verse and a chorus. I was in the car on a road trip, and when I got home, I decided to sing it over the chords of ‘New Year’s Day.’ I think they’re really beautiful chords. I was lucky enough to get that approved, and it’s on the record.”) And in September, she added Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Joshua Farro as songwriters to “Good 4 U.”
According to a Billboard report, the move had probably cost Olivia and her camp millions in royalties. But for Olivia, sharing credit with artists that were part of her inspiration is all just a part of a “beautiful sharing process.”
“What’s so beautiful about music is that it can be so inspired by music that’s come out in the past,” she shared. “Every single artist is inspired by artists who have come before them. It’s sort of a fun, beautiful sharing process. Nothing in music is ever new. There’s four chords in every song. That’s the fun part — trying to make that your own.”
It appears Olivia isn’t the only one to share this view on finding inspiration. Music legend Elvis Costello, who previously spoke up in Olivia’s defense, seems to share similar views.
When one critic also theorized that Sour’s opening track “Brutal” sounded a lot like Elvis Costello’s 1978 hit “Pump It Up,” Elvis graciously responded that “It’s how rock n roll works” and seemingly acknowledged that his own track was inspired by Bob Dylan’s 1965 song “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” which happened to be inspired by Chuck Berry’s 1956 track “Too Much Monkey Business.”
Olivia, who rose to fame on High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and went on to achieve mainstream stardom with her music, also got candid about growing up in the spotlight.
“When you’re in the industry, you’re sort of treated like a child but expected to act like an adult. That’s a really terrifying thought, to think that I’m not allowed to make any mistakes, because I think that’s how you grow as a person,” she said. “I’m no different from any other 18-year-old out there. I’m definitely going to make a lot of mistakes in my life and in my career probably too. That’s just life.”
