Student Discusses the Heated Drama Behind Olivia Rodrigo’s “Driver’s License”
Olivia’s “Driver’s License” has received over 250 million streams and was voted number one song on national and global charts.
Photo courtesy of nytimes.com
2021 brought a wave of chaos, a hopeful future, and a world full of new beginnings. Within the span of just a few days we witnessed our democracy being jeopardized, a presidential inauguration, and the flipping of our senate. However, millions of people were drawn towards a different history making event: the release of Olivia Rodrigo's hit new single, “Drivers License.” Reaching the number one spot on both national and global charts, as well as receiving over 250 million streams on Spotify, there is no doubt that Rodrigo’s song will go down as one of the biggest pop music successes. Critics have already compared her to Lorde, the 1975, and even Rodrigo’s biggest idol, Taylor Swift. However, the reason behind her song’s mind blowing success may not have only been it's heart wrenching bridge or impeccable lyrics. Interestingly enough, it was the love triangle that inspired Rodrigo to write “Drivers License” in the first place that caught the attention of so many fans.
So what really happened between Olivia Rodrigo, her co-star Joshua Bassett, and his new flame Sabrina Carpenter that could have prompted Rodrigo to write one of the most agonizing heartbreak songs of the 21st century?
Rodrigo and Basset originally met in 2019 while filming their popular Disney+ series, High School Musical the Musical: the Series. Although Rodrigo had been dating her former co-star Ethan Wacker at the beginning of filming, their break up soon sparked some rumors about a potential romance between Olivia and Josh. While neither Rodrigo nor Basset ever confirmed these rumors, their several sightings together and multiple songs allegedly written about each other, were enough for the general public to confirm. Despite their clear chemistry, the two and a half year age difference between the two was what made their entanglement come to an end, and based on “Drivers License'' we can safely assume that it was Basset who ended things. However, this was only the beginning of the drama.
Rodrigo hints in her lyric, “I guess you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me, cus you said forever now I drive along past your street” that Basset’s songs, “Anyone Else” and “Commonsense” were in fact love songs about Olivia. While this connection pretty much confirmed the romance between these two love birds, it also confirmed that Basset was the one who shattered her heart. After hearing that Basset broke his alleged promise of “forever” to Rodrigo, the fans were not pleased with him. Thousands of them expressed their anger on multiple social media platforms, including Tik Tok, Twitter, and Instagram. While Basset never responded to the waves of social media hate, Carpenter certainly did.
January twenty-second was a regular Friday afternoon, until Carpenter decided it was not. That day, Carpenter released her new single, “Skin.” Although Rodrigo’s song never explicitly mentioned Carpenter or Basset in any way other than her lyric, “And you're probably with that blonde girl/Who always made me doubt/She's so much older than me/She's everything I'm insecure about,” she decided to take a different approach. “Skin” included numerous digs at Olivia, including “maybe blonde was the only rhyme,” “I'm happy and you hate it, hate it, oh/And I'm not asking you to let it go/But you been telling your side/So I'll be telling mine, oh,” and “You can try/To get under my, under my, under my skin/While he's on mine/Yeah, all on my, all on my, all on my skin.” All of this aside, however, many people believe Carpenter’s song was nothing but a PR scheme. As Hollywood would say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
So, now we must ask ourselves, Riverdale: whose side are we on? Should we sympathize with Olivia, or feel for Sabrina? Do we excuse Josh’s actions since we don’t even know the whole story? In my opinion, no one is truly in the wrong except the spectators. Olivia released a banger, and people should have left it at that. All of this hate just created a domino effect of unnecessary drama and bad blood. Or, maybe that is what Olivia, Sabrina, and Josh were going for all along. I guess we will never know.
