She hasn't even released a full-length album yet, nor has she moved past the Disney stigma that sticks to stars from 'High School Musical,' but Olivia Rodrigo is still insanely famous thanks to one little song.
Her hit 'Drivers License' rocketed up the charts unexpectedly in January of 2021, and even Rodrigo herself was shocked. After all, her debut album wasn't even done yet, though she did give fans a sneak peek post-Spotify record, and somehow, the song took off on its own.
Sure, she had a Disney background, but 'Drivers License' has earned Olivia a pretty penny already, and it appears that her fame will only continue to grow as fans investigate the drama and potential back story of her hit track.
And while Rodrigo didn't divulge any relationship details that hint at the meaning behind her song, she did give a telling interview to Vogue in late January, right after her song blew up. The thing is, the young star had a few things to confess.
For one, Olivia realized that she'd made a punctuation boo-boo after the song debuted. By that time, it was too late to add the correct apostrophe: 'Driver's License.' So now, Olivia has to live with her track being improperly titled. But that's not the only thing the singer confessed about her song.
Despite its catchy lyrics and teen-friendly angst, the song isn't quite perfect, admitted Rodrigo. Vogue called the song "disarmingly honest" because it reflected on Olivia's real-life milestone of getting her driver's license the same week she had her heart broken. Fans assume the song was about her ex, Joshua Bassett, but of course, Olivia hasn't confirmed that.
After all, she wrote the song back when she got her driver's license. As she explained to Vogue, she's "always loved the song," elaborating that she wrote it about six months before its debut. Regardless, the reveal happened mid-pandemic, which meant she watched the song tick up the charts but wasn't out on stage, doing promo, or even connecting in person with her producer.
Which explains why Olivia had full creative freedom of the song, from its origins at her piano to the lyrics that she also admitted aren't grammatically correct, either. She pointed out that the line "I've never felt this way for no one" was "completely grammatically incorrect."
In short, "the song is all over the place," the starlet laughed, but that's partly because of how it grew organically out of some feelings of sadness yet freedom that she was feeling. She literally sat down at the piano after a drive around her neighborhood and concocted the song from some lines in her diary. Then, she penned the remainder of the song (the bridge) with her producer.
Her true confession? That the song was from the heart, it was messy, and she never anticipated the way fans would respond. And now, it's just a little bit awkward.
