Red lights, stops signs, white cars, front yards
You tell that blonde girl, Olivia
In case you’ve been under a rock since early January––and if you have, I commend you, that’s honestly a great life choice––there’s a new song on the charts called “Driver’s License.” It’s the debut single from Olivia Rodrigo, a Disney star from colon-forward TV show High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.
The song broke the record for most single-day streams over its release weekend, then broke its own record the following day. The New York Times and Rolling Stone dedicated entire episodes of their music podcasts to discussing it. It trended on Twitter, served as background music for countless Reels on Instagram, and has gotten Rodrigo more than 9 million likes on her TikTok about how and why she wrote it. As of Thursday late morning, the single had nearly two million more daily streams than any other track on Spotify’s Global Top 50.
So, how did we get here?
I’ll dive into the storytelling in a second. But there are a few other factors at play that are worth mentioning for context.
First, Rodrigo released the single into a relatively uncrowded music ecosystem, with many big artists keeping things mostly on pause until they can tour again. Pop fans had already pretty much memorized Taylor, Miley, Ariana, and Dua Lipa’s 2020 albums. We can only talk about folklore and evermore for so long (I guess), and people were ready for something new.
Second, though her acting on Bizaardvark and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (seriously, who named that) gave Rodrigo something of a platform for the launch, she was still relatively unknown. This made hearing the song for the first time an incredibly alluring experience. It’s not that often a totally new voice comes along and gives you that sensation of, who is this person and where I can hear more? I remember feeling that way the first time I heard Lorde’s “Royals”––like there was a before and an after in pop music, because of this person I hadn’t even known existed. It was really exciting to have that same feeling again.
Third, once you do dig into the whole “who is this person” thing and discover the PG-rated Disney gossip behind the lyrics, it all gets more even intriguing. The “blonde girl” Rodrigo references might be fellow Disney star Sabrina Carpenter! And Carpenter’s been romantically linked to Rodrigo’s co-star and rumored former flame Josh Bassett, who may or may not have taught Rodrigo to drive in an In-N-Out parking lot! (Aww.) Bassett, for his part, recently released a single called “Lie Lie Lie,” which may or may not be a direct response to “Driver’s License”! Oh, and Sabrina Carpenter also recently released a song called “Skin,” which questions the rhyming skills of an unnamed artist who put the word “blonde” in her song. (Burn!)
It’s all very entertaining, especially because none of the supposedly-involved-people are in any hurry to confirm or deny the rumors. And they all seem to be enjoying the significant boost this potentially-made-up drama is giving their respective songs.
So, that’s the context. But if you ask me, the biggest reason the song has been this successful is that it’s really, really good. If Lorde, Taylor Swift, and The Postal Service fused together into one musical superbeing, then listened to a bunch of mid-2000s pop-emo before sitting down at a keyboard, that’s basically how you’d get “Driver’s License.” Rodrigo feels like the natural heir to Lorde’s particular brand of highly suburban angst, Swift’s storytelling that takes **ALL THE EMOTIONS VERY SERIOUSLY**, and The Postal Service’s wistful, quirky production, which makes you feel like you’ll discover something new every time you listen.
Let’s dig into that storytelling aspect for a second.
Right from the get-go, Rodrigo gives us a setting––the suburbs––and an inciting incident: she’s just gotten her driver’s license. The problem? This big American teen milestone doesn’t feel anything like it’s supposed to.
Next, enter the villain:
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
Now, as someone who spent 2019 writing a master’s thesis about why media for young people has done a disservice to girls by pitting them against one another narratively, I take *some* issue with this framing. However, at this point Rodrigo’s already won me over with the preemptive nostalgia and that clever sampling of that open-door beep sound. And the “blonde girl” is a particularly effective villain because she hits the narrator where it hurts. A villain’s main job is to be everything the protagonist is insecure about, whether that’s because they’re the polar opposite of the hero (Joker’s obsessed with chaos, while Batman’s obsessed with order), or because they’re a little too similar to the protagonist for comfort (Voldemort’s an orphan, a talented wizard, and a Parseltongue, just like Harry).
So the blonde girl’s presence ups the story’s emotional stakes. And I’m like, yeah, Olivia, you tell them.
From there, the song builds and builds to a bridge that’s a perfect example of how really specific images can add so much to the texture, feel, and vividness of a story:
Red lights, stop signs
I still see your face in the white cars, front yards
Can't drive past the places we used to go to
'Cause I still fuckin' love you, babe
Sidewalks we crossed
I still hear your voice in the traffic, we're laughing
Over all the noise
I heard this bridge and immediately felt sixteen again. It captures that feeling of driving for the first time, when suddenly that same stop sign you’ve seen every day for years and years looks totally different, and means something totally different, and all these sad and happy emotions you can’t even explain are hitting you all at once.
The specificity is what does this. It’s not just that moment we laughed. It’s the way the person’s voice sounded in the traffic. That certain shared afternoon you’ll never get back. These lyrical choices help the emotion become real and the image become tangible, in a way a simple “I miss you” never would. It reflects the real way we experience our emotions, in our real lives.
So, crank up the music. Go for a drive.
And happy storytelling, all.
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Erin Becker (she/her)
Writer | Communications Consultant | Storytelling Expert
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