Rodrigo v Swift: It must be exhausting always rooting for the popstar feud

Olivia Rodrigo has just released her wonderful new album Guts, a triumphant follow-up to her 2021 Grammy-winning breakthrough Sour, and all anyone can talk about is which songs are about Taylor Swift. Why, and how did we get here?

Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts is such a good album.
It is. Raw, compelling, vibrant and fun, it kind of sucks that everyone just wants to discuss it in terms of the whole Olivia-Taylor situation.

Rodrigo and Swift get chummy in 2021.Credit: taylorswift/Instagram

Totally. Wait… what is the “whole Olivia-Taylor situation”?
Are you seriously gonna make me do this? I’ll look like such a hypocrite. Ugh, fine. This is a very long and tedious story, so imagine I’m wearing Olivia and Taylor hand puppets while I narrate this.

Sure.
It was early January 2021. Olivia Rodrigo’s massive breakthrough anthem Drivers License was conquering the globe. “She’s, like, the next Taylor Swift,” said the world and its music critics. “Thanks, world! That’s a great compliment because I am the biggest Swiftie in the world and the only reason I exist is because Taylor Swift is mother,” replied Olivia Rodrigo.

She said that?
More or less, I don’t know how teenagers talk. In any case, it was a mutual admiration society: when Drivers License charted at number three on iTunes, just behind a Swift double, Rodrigo Instagrammed her delight and Swift responded with a comment saying, “That’s my baby and I’m proud.” They met in person at the Brit Awards in May 2021 and took lovely photos together.

Aww.
Then that same month Olivia’s debut album Sour came out, and everything changed.

Friendly Taylor at the 2021 Brit Awards.Credit: Getty Images

That’s a very sudden plot twist.
Upon the album’s release, Rodrigo’s song 1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back featured a songwriting credit for Swift because it included an interpolation of Swift’s track New Year’s Day, a sort of nod from Rodrigo to her hero’s influence. But weeks later, fans noticed that Swift had also been retroactively credited on Rodrigo’s Deja Vu for its supposed resemblance to Swift’s Cruel Summer, while Rodrigo’s Good 4 U also received a retroactive songwriting credit for Hayley Williams and Josh Farro of Paramore because it sounded a lot like the pop-punk band’s Misery Business.

I can’t deal with people who act like they invented music.
That’s what Elvis Costello said! Billboard later reported that Rodrigo had “given up millions in publishing royalties” due to the retroactive interpolation credits.

Ouch.
In an interview with Time later that year, Rodrigo addressed the whole plagiarism fiasco, saying: “It was really frustrating to see people discredit and deny my creativity.” There have been no cuddly photo opps, or even kind public words, between Olivia and Taylor since.

Olivia Rodrigo: is she really this obsessed with Taylor?

Fair enough, Taylor touched her money.
And she didn’t stop there: in a coincidence that seems too snarky to be accidental, in June of this year Swift invited singer Sabrina Carpenter – long rumoured to be “the other woman” in the real-life love triangle depicted in Rodrigo’s Drivers License – to be the opening artist on her international Eras tour, including its Australian leg next February.

Classic Taylor.
You said it, not me. Of course, when Vampire, the first single off Rodrigo’s new album was released in June, listeners were quick to suggest its lyrics were aimed at Swift. “I used to think I was smart, but you made me look so naive/ The way you sold me for parts, as you sunk your teeth into me,” particularly perked ears.

Well, I mean, that’s hardly convincing.
This is where things get uncomfortable. To many listeners, Vampire’s clearly about some loser guy Rodrigo dated (the internet’s landed on 27-year-old DJ, Zack Bia). And the prevailing narrative – that Taylor, at 33, is supposedly jealous of her younger heir apparent’s burgeoning success – stinks of misogynistic bias. It’s that classic game of pitting female pop stars against each other for our cultural amusement. Remember Whitney vs Mariah, Britney vs Xtina, Mariah vs Jennifer Lopez, Lady Gaga vs Madonna, Taylor vs Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj vs Miley Cyrus, Miley vs Selena Gomez, Selena vs Ariana Grande, Ariana Gra...

Yes, we get it. So what’s the pair’s take on it all?
This also hasn’t helped. Swift’s been quiet and, during a recent interview with The Guardian when she was directly asked about those Swiftian readings of Vampire, Rodrigo offered a vague response. “I mean, I never want to say who any of my songs are about... I was very surprised when people thought that,” she said.

Doesn’t really clear it up, does it?
It’s polite, but that answer placated nobody. Since the release of Rodrigo’s second album Guts on Friday, bored kids and online stirrers – the conspiracy theorists of the future – have taken their Swift-tinted glasses to all of Rodrigo’s new songs. In their eyes, all of her songs could be about Swift. But their current obsession? The Grudge.

That horror movie with Sarah Michelle Gellar?
No, another The Grudge. It’s a song on Rodrigo’s new album, featuring these lyrics:

“I have nightmares each week about that Friday in May
One phone call from you and my entire world was changed
Trust that you betrayed, confusion that still lingers
Took everything I loved and crushed it in between your fingers
And I doubt you ever think about the damage that you did
But I hold on to every detail like my life depends on it
My undying love, now, I hold it like a grudge
And I hear your voice every time that I think I’m not enough.”

Oh yeah, that’s definitely about Taylor Swift destroying Olivia Rodrigo’s childhood dreams and stealing her money, it’s so obvious.
And this is where we find ourselves, a young generational talent’s work – personal, emotional, artistically considered – being judged through the lens of a pop star feud. It feels unfair. And now you’ve made me complicit.

Relax, you’re not that important.
Kinda like this whole thing you made me explain.

And so, what’s next in the whole saga of Olivia and Taylor?
Well, there’s the MTV Video Music Awards on Wednesday, where the two are up for the same awards in multiple categories, including Video of the Year, Song of the Year, and Song of the Summer.

Awkward.
Join us from 11am for the live blog! It should be... something.

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