Having sung about how her once “undying love” is now held like a grudge, Olivia Rodrigo can joke about the songwriting drama between her and Taylor Swift.
Rodrigo, 20, and her co-writer/producer Dan Nigro, hosted an intimate show at The Theater at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles. on October 9, according to Billboard. The concert gave Rodrigo and Nigro, 41, a chance to perform songs off her new album, Guts, while sharing how the tracks came together.
While discussing “Teenage Dream,” Rodrigo said they wanted to follow her debut album, Sour, by having another piano ballad as an album closer. Nigro also noted that his then 5-month-old daughter, Saoirse, is featured on the song, though she didn’t get credit.
“Uh-oh,” said Rodrigo “with a knowing laugh,” per Billboard. “There’s gonna be some issues there.”
The joke was an apparent reference to the songwriting credit drama related to Sour. After the album was released, Swift, 33, and her collaborators Jack Antonoff and St. Vincent received a songwriting credit for Rodrigo’s “Deja Vu” due to the song’s similarity to Swift’s “Cruel Summer.” Swift also got a songwriting credit on Rodrigo’s “1 Step Forward” due to the apparent influence of Taylor’s “New Year’s Day.”
Swift and her crew weren’t the only ones retroactively credited on Sour. Paramore’s Hayley Willams and her former bandmate Josh Farro were added to the “Good 4 U” credits due to the song’s likeness to “Misery Business,” arguably Paramore’s biggest song.
The credit “issue” resulted in Rodrigo giving both bands/acts 50 percent of the credits and royalties for the respective tracks. When speaking about this experience with The Guardian and how it possibly affected her songwriting on Guts, Rodrigo said, “I was so green as to how the music industry worked, the litigious side … I feel like now I know so much more about the industry and I just feel … better equipped in that regard. It wasn’t something I thought about too much.”
During that same interview, Rodrigo addressed the fan speculation that “Vampire,” the first single from Guts, was about Swift. With lyrics like “bloodsucker, fame f—ker, bleedin’ me dry like a goddamn vampire,” and Swift recruiting Sabrina Carpenter – the long-rumored other involved in the “Drivers License” love triangle with Rodrigo and Joshua Bassett – to open for her on the South American leg of The Eras Tour, fans wondered if Rodrigo had a falling out with her idol.
“I mean, I never want to say who any of my songs are about. I’ve never done that before in my career and probably won’t. I think it’s better to not pigeonhole a song to being about this one thing,” she told The Guardian. “I was very surprised when people thought that.”
