Olivia Rodrigo would be the first to admit she’s not immune to heartbreak. With her new album, Rodrigo catalogues the emotional swings that define the ups and downs of young romance.
Across you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, Rodrigo reveals an evolution. She ditches her signature purple and replaces it with bright pink. She sheds the all-caps exclamations of GUTS and SOUR for the lowercase whisper of sadness and love.
It’s clear she’s moved past the first week of owning her driver’s license, but still finds herself searching for the cure to her lovesickness.
Her album you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love neatly divides itself into the good and the bad sides of a relationship. In the first half, Rodrigo swoons over how she’s so happy with her new relationship that she might “drop dead.” But by the album’s end, that very relationship has her asking “what’s wrong with me?”
Rodrigo’s musical superpower remains her ability to get you to feel exactly what she does. This time around, she keeps asking: If we all want to be loved, why is it so painful?
Early album standout “the cure” seems destined to be another Rodrigo chart-topper. It’s catchy, boasts an alluring music video, and reveals a reflective Rodrigo.
Following the end of a longstanding relationship, she realizes that “It don’t matter how your love feels anymore/It’ll never be the cure.” She’s adamant that the antidote to her ongoing pain isn’t found in a relationship. She’s tried that. It didn’t work. She realizes returning to harmful, toxic relationships will “never be enough.”
Her song “honeybee” captures a similar feeling from a different point on the timeline. Rodrigo’s still in the early phase of her relationship and things are going well. She’s focused on the right things, singing, “Time can heal the worst of wounds…I love you baby, I promise.”
On “what’s wrong with me” Rodrigo realizes she’s in pain and needs to do something to fix herself. She sings, “I’m not feeling like myself/Nothing ever seems to help.” She discovers the root cause is her relationship. She says, “I think you’re what’s wrong with me,” leading her to eventually end things.
“expectations” has Rodrigo proclaiming “now I’m so secure.” When it comes to dating, she says, “Now I take careful consideration.”
The song “drop dead” shines the light on how consuming Rodrigo’s relationships can be. She sings, “One night I was bored in bed/And stalked you on the internet … kiss me and I might drop dead.”
“maggots for brains” is a gross narration of attending a party without her partner. For Rodrigo, the night reveals her damaging co-dependency. She sings, “I’m a zombie in my body … I feel dirty, I feel rotten … I’m a sad shell of woman and I’ve got maggots for brains.”
On “u + me = <3” Rodrigo defies advice to take things slow. Instead she goes against better judgement and says, “They say modern love’s a cruel endeavor/And to that I say, “F— it, whatever.”
Rodrigo’s “my way” reveals an ongoing feud with another girl who’s interested in Rodrigo’s guy. She quickly turns threatening and vulgar as she says, “You’re in my way now … Let me be direct. …You’re f—– weird.” At the end she also admits she’s a “petty b–ch.”
As she’s caught up in her latest fling, she wonders, “If there is a god, he’s the bond between us two.” The line between madness and love starts to blur as she sings, “I’m going crazy…I want you so bad.”
“cigarette smoke” lays bare the ugly side of her breakup. The details are dark and dense. She arrives at the conclusion by saying, “I thought that we played the perfect couple/’Til you didn’t want the part.” She gets a bit more colorful in her description as she grows more resentful.
Several songs contain harsh profanity, continuing a concerning trend among the female popstars Rodrigo slots in next to such as Sabrina Carpenter and Charli XCX. Across the album, more than a dozen f-words appear, several s-words, and other vulgarities.
A handful of songs also feature settings in bars, smoking blunts, and drinking beers together with a date—an unsurprising development given Rodrigo now of legal drinking age.
Rodrigo spends most of you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love toeing the line of romantic obsession and emotional breakdown.
She pairs heartfelt lyrics with a crushing indie rock sound to the point of practically inducing panic attacks for her listeners. There’s a point where it all feels like too much.
And rightfully so.
Then again, that’s what Rodrigo has told us. Love can be too much. To her, love is heartbreak more than joy. Relationships are marked by pain more than forgiveness.
There are spare moments of healthy reflection through Rodrigo’s relationships. But they are sadly outweighed by her doubling down on vengeful, spiteful, hateful emotions towards her lover.
The collateral damage of Rodrigo’s relationships doesn’t just impact her ex. Rodrigo’s advice will do little to help a listener with a similar relationship status, leading to the continuation of the very cycle she wishes to escape.
Jackson Greer is a High School English Teacher in the suburbs of Texas. He lives in Coppell, Texas with his wife, Clara. They love debating whether or not to get another cat and reading poetry together. Also, he is a former employee of Focus on the Family’s Parenting Department.
