Olivia Rodrigo says Lorde’s ‘Royals’ “changed the trajectory” of her life

Olivia Rodrigo has revealed that listening to Lorde‘s ‘Royals’ changed “the trajectory” of her life.

Speaking to Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, Jon Batiste, Cynthia Erivo and Julia Michaels’ Songwriter Roundtable interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Rodrigo spoke of the first time she had heard the Lorde song on the radio and went on to explain how it had impacted her so deeply.

“I remember hearing that song on the radio at the time… It was one of those ‘pinch me’ moments where you always remember, a snapshot memory, like, ‘Oh my God, what is this?!’ Changes the trajectory of your life,” Rodrigo called to her fellow musicians.

“I remember listening to it as I first started writing songs and just being blown away by her lyrics that are just about being a teenager living in the suburbs,” Rodrigo went on to explain. “I just remember never hearing my life be put into a song like that where it just made being young and doing these seemingly unimportant things feel so sacred.”

Most recently, the singer-songwriter discussed the inspiration behind some of the “emo” lyrics in her recent songs ‘Lacy’ and ‘All-American Bitch’.

Speaking on the Kelly Clarkson Show, Rodrigo gave insight into how she conceived the lyrics for the outro of ‘Lacy’ – “And I despise my jealous eyes and how hard they fell for you / Yeah, I despise my rotten mind and how much it worships you.”

“Very emo of me, writing that,” Rodrigo told Clarkson, laughing. “I took a poetry class at USC,” she continued. “I wrote a poem called ‘Lacy’ for one of the assignments, and I really liked it. I’m like, ‘I’m gonna turn it into a song!’”

NME praised  Olivia Rodrigo’s sophomore album ‘GUTS’ in a five-star review, saying: “In the orbit of her urgent and riotous second album, the 20-year-old turns her own vulnerabilities into a rallying cry: here, she’s a songwriter of control, diving headfirst into the collective female experience while also pursuing adventure, desire and relief.”

The album also landed in the number two spot of NME’s Best 50 Albums of 2023.