For some, it may be a piece of furniture, but for Olivia Rodrigo, it was a “huge honor” to finally play at the actual “tiny desk” for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series.
“I’ve never been star-struck by a room before,” said Rodrigo, 20, in the video uploaded by NPR on Monday, December 11, as she prepared to sing a handful of tracks from her new record, Guts.
Rodrigo started her performance with “Love is Embarrassing,” which she wrote after a night of “lying in bed and just playing back every embarrassing thing you’ve ever done and just cringing at yourself.” It was the last song to be added to her sophomore album.
From there, Rodrigo played “Vampire,” “Lacy” “and Making the Bed.” She explained that while “Love is Embarrassing” came quickly, “Vampire” took a month of fine-tuning with producer Dan Nigro. “Lacy,” meanwhile, started as a poem after Rodrigo “took a poetry class last year at USC.”
“I wrote this poem as one of my homework assignments that I really loved,” she said. “It was the first time I’ve ever written a song by taking a full sheet of lyrics and then putting melody to it.”
Rodrigo explained that when she writes songs, she creates lyrics and melodies at the same time. Putting music to her poem was “a big experiment for me as a songwriter, and it turned out to be one of my favorite songs on the record.”
The experiment paid off. Guts scored six nominations for the upcoming 66th Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year (“Vampire”), Song of the Year (“Vampire”), Best Pop Solo Performance (“Vampire”), Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Rock Song (“Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl”).
Rodrigo made her Tiny Desk Concert debut in December 2021 when she and her band performed in an empty DMV as a nod to her hit single “Drivers License.” Due to Covid-19 restrictions, artists weren’t able to appear in NPR’s studio at the time.
Rodrigo’s second Tiny Desk appearance came days after she was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, where she made a surprise cameo in a sketch. She showed off her comedic chops on Saturday, December 9, by joining host Adam Driver and SNL cast members Marcello Hernandez and Ego Nwodim in the “Tiny Ass Bag” skit.
