“drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo, Sunday, April 17, 2022

Sometime after 21, birthdays start to feel anticlimactic. The vestiges of childhood have disappeared now that you can drink, smoke, watch any movie, and drive. Besides renting a car and a senior citizen’s discount, whatever you look forward to as an adult isn’t tied to your birthday. And while laws vary state to state, sixteen is the symbolic age when teenagers gain their greatest independence: their driver’s licenses. The anticipation for this rite of passage plays out to the point of being cliché in teen movies, but remembering the day one received that laminated card connects every generation of Americans. Perhaps that’s why Olivia Rodrigo’s breakthrough single was such a massive hit last year. The first single from her debut record SOUR, starts the Disney Channel actress’s in slow, sad-girl territory, similar to the slower tunes of Lorde and Billie Eilish. But even on a slow track like today’s song, we still get a driving rock beat. And while releasing one of the slowest songs from a rock-oriented record hasn’t historically worked well for an artist, “driver’s license” seems to be an exception. But we’re living in a time when music doesn’t play by the rules.

RED LIGHTS, STOP SIGNS. Of the many things that you could do that could negatively impact your life as a teenager involving a car, breaking up with someone is pretty benign, even if it involves some blonde. This is in no way to belittle Rodrigo’s pain. Just like Taylor Swift’s Fearless record, Rodrigo makes us feel the heartbreak of being a teenager, starting in “drivers license.” But thirty-something-year-old me remembers what forever felt like, so I listen intently and roll my eyes when I think about it. Then I think of the reasons why this song is even up for conversation because of the critics that I listen to — David Bennett Piano and Rick Beato— who have praised Rodrigo’s songwriting and arrangements. But it’s really the ascending minor chord to the major chord in the pre-chorus (see the lyric card above) that makes the song stick all day. We hear Rodrigo ascending from sadness to power in her heartbeat in this line. Then, as we listen to the song in the context of the album, we realize that Rodrigo has littered images in each song. These images are snapshots of her relationship or the breakup, and the internet has taken to deciphering them.

YOU SAID FOREVER, NOW I DRIVE PAST YOUR STREET. In 2019, the first season of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series was released on Disney Channel. The series starred Olivia Rodrigo and Joshua Bassett as the leading stars, and according to the rumors, the two dates, and Bassett broke Rodrigo’s heart by cheating on her with fellow Disney actress Sabrina Carpenter. Bassett neither confirmed or denied these rumors in interviews, instead focusing the attention on his own solo career, his emerging LGBTQ+ identity, and his mental health, the latter Rodrigo makes a jab at in “good 4 u,” should the song in fact be about him. Does the gossip make the story more interesting than it actually is? Does this teenager scorned story make Rodrigo the next Taylor Swift? Is Joshua Bassett the musical equivalent to Colton Underwood? Will these questions even be relevant next time I write about Rodrigo?

Read “drivers license” lyrics on Genius.

Official Music Video: