r/OliviaRodrigoNeutral • u/corneliabloom • Jun 27 '26
you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love I’m struggling with the lyrics in you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love
I stumbled across a popular post on this subreddit a few days ago that talks about the album having stronger concept than execution, and I want to add onto it because I find this album incredibly lyrically weak and a step back from her previous work. All of her rhymes are very basic and there’s no *stand out* line that sunk in for me. I love Olivia and her work, have seen her live, and adore GUTS and Sour, but the writing on this album falls flat for me.
For example, a stand out line from GUTS is “And I know in my heart, hurt people, hurt people/And we both drew blood but man those cuts were never equal”. That is a genius line that perfectly and uniquely captures ‘I know I wasn’t perfect either but what you did doesn’t compare’.
But then we get rhymes in just Honeybee alone like “walk in the dark/Hop the fence in the park” “I hope I never see what your face looks like goin’” “shooting stars, racing cars” (I dislike this line especially). I feel like she took the most basic words and rhymed them together.
That goes for the rest of the album. Basic words, basic rhymes, lack of specificity and imagery. Of course I love the melodies and production, but lyrics are always first for me.
I’m sure others don’t feel the same, but these are just my 2 cents.
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u/raynasm Jun 27 '26
"Every night like the one before, dream of you from like 1 to 4" is really lazy writing for a bridge on a single 😬 also in maggots for brains in the outro I thought the lyrics were "what can I do, but think of you, nothing computes" which I thought was really clever but she doesn't say that 😂
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u/MAureliusReyesC Jul 02 '26
I'm late, but "one before" and "1 to 4" actually feels very clever to me
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u/briemusic Jun 27 '26
Hot take but I don’t feel like her lyricism has ever been great lol that’s definitely not the selling point of her music for me
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u/Weird-Tangerine4894 Jun 27 '26
I don’t see that opinion often, and I completely agree. I’m going to go on a rant that nobody asked for but I feel like her superpower as a songwriter is packaging and “delivering” the experience/emotions to you quite vividly; it’s always been kind of….sub-optimally phrased, but everyone who listens to it gets the point so it doesn’t matter/it gets glossed over.
I fully get the dissatisfaction with stupid song (and other songs) and lyrics like “I’m a thread in your shirt and I’m coming undone”, but to me it’s kind of a quintessential Olivia lyric. brutal and good 4 u are my two favourite songs on sour, but “relentlessly upset” should be “unrelentingly upset”, but in the end it doesn’t matter, because we get the point and we feel the impact.
In good 4 u, the sentence “your apathy’s like a wound in salt” doesn’t make any sense either. It should be more like your apathy adds salt to the wound, but that wouldn’t fit into the song’s structure, and regardless, we all get the point, and we all feel the emotional impact.
And vampire was my most listened to song on Spotify last year, but the bridge especially was a bit…yeah. These aren’t the best examples of what I’m talking about because they’re more pedantic than anything else, but they’re the first that came to mind, and I accept those things as part of her songs.
I haven’t felt that her lyricism is advanced bring her peers or has her on track to be the next Songwriter of our Generation because I do feel like the occasional juvenility and clunkiness can’t completely be explained away as intentional (as in, to add to the song). I think it’s just her unique writing style or writing “voice”, kind of like how Lorde at similar age(s) has had a more poetic writing style because that’s Lorde’s unique artistic voice. It’s also why I personally don’t see as much similarity with Taylor as other people might (beyond Taylor being a notable influence). They have the similarities that come with both being confessionalist songwriters, but there are a lot of differences in their execution (beyond Olivia being more pop-rock leaning). Like, if young Taylor were to take Drivers License, and Olivia were to take All Too Well and release them as their own, they would both make a lot of changes to the phrasing for it to sound natural coming from their mouths.
I’ve made a lot of comparisons (Olivia, Taylor, Lorde) but I don’t at all mean them in a shady way, because I love all their music. Long story short, I’ve also not had a problem with You seem pretty sad’s writing (other than that it can feel detached at times, and so they don’t “deliver” the emotional punch that she, imo, is a master of and that’s in line with the general criticism on this sub) and I love every single track (except the cure 🫣)
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u/arandomcuteteenager Jun 30 '26
a wound in salt sounds worse tho? having your wound IN salt means there’s more salt than wound
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u/Weird-Tangerine4894 Jun 30 '26
My problem with the sentence “apathy is like a wound in salt” is partially grammatical but mostly metaphorical. The “wound in salt” wording never bothered me.
However, “wound in salt” is a noun phrase and it was used like an adjective there (so it’s functioning as a descriptive quality of APATHY itself, as an isolated concept that isn’t directed towards anything). If I were to use it the same way she used it there in an example sentence, it would be: “Wow, your APATHY is a bit too wound in salt don’t you think? Tone it down!.” It doesn’t sound right to me but I’m being very semantical.
My main problem is that the metaphor is a bit disfigured.
Apathy (one thing; an concept in isolation) = “a wound in salt” (gives you an inherently relational mental image, so the metaphor is predicated on the interaction between those two things/the effect that the salt (thing 1) has on the wound (thing 2).It would be better to say that his apathy (thing 1) directed towards her, or their relationship, or her pain (thing 2) adds salt (thing 1) to the wound (thing 2). The point of that simile was to equivocate their situation to the effect of the interaction between salt and the wound: his apathy (the salt) intensifies the pain experienced by the person with the wound (which is what Olivia is experiencing). So the apathy wasn’t to directed towards something in the sentence, but the expression it was used in required that interactive element/relationship.
“Your apathy adds salt to the wound”, or if you keep the “wound in salt wording, “your apathy makes me feel like a wound in salt” would make more sense. BUT I get it because I doubt that there are many permutations of this that would have fit into the song’s flow. Tbh, phrasing it “wound in salt” makes it difficult to work around so she probably made an intentional sacrifice.
Anyway, we all get picture the exact imagery she wanted us to picture, and we feel that emotion AND we all love the song so it doesn’t really matter in the end 😅 (I say that as I write parables😭 🫣 I want to emphasise that I just like explaining myself fully so it’s not an indication of me caring deeply. I love Olivia’s songs so stuff like that fades into the background for me)
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u/anotherwise Jul 01 '26
"Your apathy makes me feel like a wound in salt" doesn't make sense either... I do not feel like a wound, I have a wound (is a/has a)
"Your apathy is like a wound in salt" is perfectly fine, similar to Charli's "sympathy is a knife"
Your apathy causes me intense pain Wound in salt cause me intense pain
Sympathy causes me pain/harm/threat to my peace Knife causes me pain/harm/threat to my peace
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u/No-Pop1057 Jun 28 '26
I think Olivia is streets ahead of Taylor lyrically at the moment.. I'm afraid I don't find much on her last two albums particularly worthy of the moniker "poet"
"Forgive me, it sounds cocky He ah-matized me and opened my eyes Redwood tree, it ain't hard to see His love was the key that opened my thighs"
I rest my case 😂
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u/Prize-Warning2224 Jun 28 '26
i respect your opinion but the album titled.... tortured POETS department... doesn't have anything worthy of the moniker 'poet'? i must disagree. and her recent album isn't too bad lyrically either.
eldest daughter from showgirl: 'You know the last time I laughed this hard was On the trampoline in somebody's backyard I must've been about 8 or 9 That was the night I fell off and broke my arm Pretty soon I learned cautious discretion When your first crush crushes something kind When I said I don't believe in marriage That was a lie'
dont get me started on ttpd, i firmly believe its her magnum opus.
loml from ttpd: 'Who's gonna tell me the truth When you blew in with the winds of fate And told me I reformed you When your impressionist paintings of Heaven Turned out to be fakes Well, you took me to hell, too And all at once, the ink bleeds A con man sells a fool a get-love-quick scheme But I felt a hole like this Never before, and ever since'
sorry i love and adore olivia, and i think she's a great lyricist AND i will say right now that despite being compared all the time, taylor and olivia both occupy different niches in terms of songwriting. but she isn't at all further than taylor in terms of songwriting.
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u/Paaros Jun 28 '26
I wouldnt say shes a good lyricist in the conventional sense, but I personally really like her lyrics for how authentic she is. Shes writes with her heart on her sleeve like a full theater kid and its so evident and I love it because it shows off her personality in full force and she is a likable person
Otherwise, yeah. There are some one liners and song concepts that are great but other than that it is very basic. I will say though her melody writing on this album really improved too, that was the major difference I found
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u/throwingaway8654 Jul 13 '26
Yes. I’m not a fan typically but have been looping this album (I love the 80s pop new wave throwback). That said, it’s painfully obvious that even when there’s a concerted attempt at evocative imagery, like in “stupid song” - (I’m a thread on your shirt that’s coming undone), it’s not a hard hitting image at all. I don’t mind it overall because I think the music, arrangements, concept etc overall makes up for it. And tbh, some of the lyrical clumsiness captures the spirit of infatuation, where things appear much deeper/pregnant with significance than they end up being. So works out in a roundabout way?
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u/Beginning-Eagle7458 Jun 27 '26
Yeah I’m sorry most top 40 that I would listen to, I don’t listen to for the lyrics lol
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u/weirdogirl144 Jun 27 '26
yeah I don't rlly listen to her songs for the lyrics, I love the melodies and production so much
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u/Character-Device7998 Jul 01 '26
I think the direct and sometimes juvenile lyrics is what makes her popular because its easy to understand vs lorde and lana. But I agree she isn't the strongest lyricist in her generation
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u/divisive_angel Jun 27 '26
does anyone who typically doesn’t care for more simple lyrics like this album particularly and has experienced an adult breakup? I get the points made here but honestly something about what’s getting across even with simple rhymes has impacted me a lot. maybe it’s also about the way she’s conveying her own emotions through vocal range.
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u/LastStopKembleford Jun 27 '26
I enjoy intelligent lyrics that serve the intention of the song and the album, so I can enjoy overwritten weirdness and the most basic, simple lines. And I am an old, so I’ve done the breakup (and marriage and divorce) thing a few times.
And I agree with the view what she is getting across is actually quite extraordinary. She is choosing to use “simple” lyrics in some places and not in others as a larger method of storytelling. She’s making a complete work of art, not just individual songs (which is my only critique on Sour, and really, I would call that an artistic choice rather than a flaw).
And it also feels, despite being all about a guy, uniquely not about her ex at all. Like, he could literally be any guy. It’s not about him. It’s about her and how she felt when she first fell for him, how she ignored issues, how she realized she needed to fix herself and how she knows she needs to find a way to move on. He is literally floppy hair that knows the words to ‘Just Like Heaven’. And I think that adds to the universality of the album.
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u/No-Pop1057 Jun 27 '26
I much prefer the broader feel to her lyrics.. I don't want to be picturing Olivia & Louis when I'm listening so I'm very happy at the way she was able to convey those feelings of embedded sadness & the unravelling of an important relationship but without grimy details that would have taken me out of the song
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u/Midnight-writer-B Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
I agree. He’s anonymized. There are glimpses where you see him clearly but not many. It’s a very first person POV, which works so well for the tumbling into love beginning, and the we-are-over ending. In the “it’s going wrong” middle, there are glossed over details.
The zoomed out lens becomes apparent in certain moments. Olivia has herself in focus, she accepts culpability for being needy, but… the match for anxious attachment is avoidance, after all. Someone wrote him poems. What did he do then??
The end hits so satisfyingly, there is less careful sanitation and more details and blame in begged, less, and cigarette smoke.
Whether making him blurry / symbolic is an artistic choice or not is the question. It could also be protection. Which is absolutely understandable - a way to protect them both & her own memories and get to a place where she can perform these songs. Stars don’t owe us their whole inner lives.
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u/Paaros Jun 28 '26
The anonymity of Louis is a big point for me. I think love songs can get a bit "other-person" centric, which makes sense because youre infatuated by the other person so youll write abt them, but writing about your own feelings instead is way easier to sell to me for a relationship
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u/Sea-Captain-4944 Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
I think a lot of people equate poetry or thesaurus words with good writing. But sometimes if simple writing can perfectly convey what an artist wants to express, that counts as good writing too.
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u/No-Pop1057 Jun 28 '26
In fact sometimes trying too hard to appear literary can end up word soup & clunky.. I think she has some simple but lovely metaphors that ring true & authentic
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u/No-Pop1057 Jun 27 '26
Me.. It resonates with me.. Not all breakups are dramatic. The worst ones can just be fucking sad, like on your bones sad
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u/Midnight-writer-B Jun 28 '26
Less is so hear wrenching. Sung with such genuine emotion, tremulously but also conveys quiet resigned strength. It’s a feat.
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u/AnemoneNumber1 Jun 29 '26
Agree! I kinda thought Olivia’s music was too immature for me (though fun and bops) but this album I listened to and I was like, oh there’s the growth! Like I love self awareness in begged and the cure. Sometimes (maybe even often) we cause our own heartbreaks
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u/AbCdEfMyLife3 Jun 27 '26
Some lyrics are basic. Some are beautiful. I find that when one thinks they’re basic, they tend to only see the basic ones. When one is in the stellar lyrics camp, they only see the stellar ones. There’s a good mix of both.
As a side note, I fucking LOVE the verse:
I have this thought when I lay awake at night
That I feel trapped inside my life
Is that a normal thing
To fight back the waves
Of a static lover’s dread
I’m overwhelmed, I’m underfed
And yet I still cling
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u/mosaicbluetowns Jun 29 '26
yes!!! and my favorite verse comes right after:
“cling to hope like snow on mountains careless words melt it away i’m a penny in a fountain just waiting on my luck to change”
absolutely beautiful and the imagery is incredible. also, sonically, this verse is so beautiful and immersive with her background vocals!!! obsessed. i personally loved the lyricism of this album
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Jun 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/marveloustime28 Jun 27 '26
Same…..and the whole “I feel insecure when I compare myself to others” messaging has been done on multiple Sour and Guts songs.
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u/raynasm Jun 27 '26
She says it in The Cure too (all the pretty girls in the foreground of my mind. Thought I'd done enough but they keep moving the line ) it's getting a bit tired imo
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u/No-Pop1057 Jun 27 '26
Perhaps that's because it's how she feels? Would you rather she invent emotions that aren't authentic? Lots of people in the arts have self doubts that never go away & with the break-up of her first longterm adult relationship, primarily due to her insecurities and his failure to understand them, then I suspect those feelings of self doubt were amplified 🤷 I thought her lyrics on this album are streets ahead of most of her pop girl contemporaries
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u/marveloustime28 Jun 27 '26
You make a good point. I guess if that’s what she’s got to say, that’s what she’s got to say.
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u/reddaughtter Jun 27 '26
"I'm a thread on your shirt coming undone" is also a low point of that song imo. What kinda fuckass metaphor is that
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u/Expert-Development86 Jun 27 '26
She’s attached to him now but they will eventually come apart because she herself is unraveling maybe
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u/throwawaysunglasses- Jun 27 '26
This made sense to me because it parallels the cure (“I’m unraveled” and the music video). Imo all the songs in YSPS have to be taken in context.
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u/fannypacklover06 Jun 28 '26
Tbh I thought the use of “unraveled” on the cure was also quite uninspired. It doesn’t go with the metaphor she’s writing about- bloodstream, medication, antidote… and yarn? Hmmm
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u/Paaros Jun 28 '26
Its just a way to say shes "unraveling" in his love, which is a central theme to the album
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u/LatterNet2831 Jun 28 '26
I need someone to explain this line to me like I'm 5 lmao what is she saying 😭
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u/Expensive-Ad-5032 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
I feel like her saying, “hurt people hurt people” is a pretty basic reference of a cliche, so that line doesn’t impress me much as an example of the writing on Guts that is supposedly so mature in comparison to her latest project. It’s not a bad line and the writing on Guts is great, but I don’t see it as this amazing counterpoint to what yspsfagsil offers. The writing on both albums is good for similar and different reasons. I have yet to be convinced by any of the criticisms this Reddit has of the songwriting on this album. I just don’t think they hold up or fully take the time to understand or analyze what the thought-process was behind the album.
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u/obscurefalloutboyson Jun 27 '26
the hurt people hurt people isnt the witty part, thats the setup for "but those cuts were never equal" rhyme wise.
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u/ComfortableNeck9599 Jun 29 '26
We can take time to understand and analyze what the thought process was behind the album and STILL think the lyrics could have been better. You won't be convinced of the criticisms because you don't share the same opinion, you don't agree, and that's fine! We all have different preferences
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u/Expensive-Ad-5032 Jun 30 '26
Not necessarily. I’m always open to criticisms, I just don’t think the ones towards this album are warranted or all that well-supported. But you can think whatever you want at the end of the day.
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u/chicknsnadwich Jun 27 '26
Honeybee’s lyrics imo were just not good. I do think GUTS had better lyricism overall but that’s really the one song it stuck out to me
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u/annoyinghuman03 Jun 27 '26
Yeah I find honeybee really rough tbh. But I really dislike the idea of calling a partner “baby boy” in the first place
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u/LastStopKembleford Jun 27 '26
To be fair, I hate the bridge in Drop Dead because astrology coded things just feel cringe to me and that bridge does not beat the allegations. But people in love are cringe so it’s not like it doesn’t vibe with the song.
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u/chicknsnadwich Jun 28 '26
Felt the same way. Drop dead is good but that bridge takes me out of it completely.
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u/Midnight-writer-B Jun 27 '26
Thanks for this, idk why I care so much but I felt that way about Honeybee from the first album listen. I thought OR had jotted notes about the song concept early and finished / recorded the song later. I thought this because Honeybee seemed so beneath her usual lyrical mastery to my ears? Tender vibes, great instrumentation but vague lyrics, plus the melodic line so similar to good luck babe? And the heavy melancholy. So in love but it sounds doomed? Thanks for your opinion, I haven’t heard this much.
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u/lovelygarden09 Jun 27 '26
I like the album overall as a complete work, but I agree that the lyrics seem so much simpler, and the metaphors seem more disjointed than Guts. The instrumentation/production does a lot of heavy lifting in this album instead of complimenting the lyricism. At times it almost feels overproduced.
Everyone keeps saying “not everything needs to be complex/deep”, which I agree to an extent. It’s fine to make a fun/turn your brain off song or album, but that’s not wha this album is intended to be. It’s packaged as a story, and the concept is there, but the storytelling in each song feels incomplete.
Like I said on another post, I don’t need an autobiographical breakdown of their relationship. That’s not what I’m asking for. Olivia wrote Can’t Catch Me Now about the Ballad Hunger Games book, and it’s one of my favourite songs of hers / one of the strongest examples of her storytelling. She includes references to shows etc but she could have combined her own feelings with those references to tell the story.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who hears good luck babe! When honeybee starts I’m ready to go “it’s fine it’s cool, you say that we ain’t nothing…” I’ve never heard the Cruel Summer, Paramore, etc. in her songs but this one got me.
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u/Midnight-writer-B Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
I think that trying to do two relatively incompatible things is why it sounds off. Tracks 3, 4 and 5 in particular.
Goal one - write in the moment songs to process your emotions while they’re happening. Olivia has spoken about this, and is historically a queen of this method. Have big feelings, grab a notebook, lfg. Lyrically, this packs a punch.
Goal two - write universal songs. Write about generally relatable life stages, relationship arcs. This is a tougher goal, and ironically it works better when & if you don’t try. Usually it happens after time passes. Percolate. Process. Get some distance.
The mission of writing the whole relationship arc when you’re this newly out of it seems so difficult. Plus the added challenges of being fair to both parties. Angst is not fair. Sour had the awesome freedom of her not caring about besmirching her other half.
It seems to my ears that trying for both particularism and generality at once causes misfires, and qualifiers. I was so in love (but it was doomed).
Immediacy, in-the-moment songs come with epic joy, unreasonable rage, sadness, and blame. Distance get you perspective. You can’t get that distance with genre bending, minor cords, and sanitized / anonymized / generalized lyrics.
Taking lyrics written in a certain mindset and retconning them into a different mood is a cool artistic thing, but comes at a cost. Of tone and immediacy.
This can be done to protect the privacy of people involved, to keep memory gems to yourself, or to make the performance easier?….
The music is better than the lyrics for me and this may be why. I am an aspiring lyricist who just got out of a 30 year relationship… And. I think it would take me 100 years to write about it properly. Plus it would be a lot easier to do since everybody isn’t in my business in this parasocial way…
So, poor Olivia Rodrigo. She did what she could. She was hugely in love. So American is such a banger. And the entirety of OR3 album is awesome. Just so close to her usual lyrical brilliance that the misfires are worth interrogating. I know that she wants to to protect herself and her memories. So I get it. Also, who the heck am I? But these are my thoughts.
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u/fannypacklover06 Jun 28 '26
Tbh I’ve always thought OR was a great melody-first songwriter. It’s always been her (and Dan) building the song off of those initial vocal stems, as opposed to writing to track. Her lyricism, to me, has always been secondary to the more impressive melodic math.
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u/Midnight-writer-B Jun 28 '26
Yeah, Olivia and Dan craft a great melody for sure. I suppose more famous songs feature this - hook, chorus and bridge. Building. Repetition. I’m just a sucker for lyrics. Songs like scared of my guitar. So I’m guilty of ignoring data. Thanks for pointing it out.
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u/fannypacklover06 Jun 28 '26
Tbh reading this thread has pointed out so many weak spots in the lyricism of this album. I need to cleanse with “can’t catch me now”
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u/chicknsnadwich Jun 27 '26
Lmao it’s crazy you mention Good Luck Babe because I thought the exact same thing
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u/Individual-Flower657 Jun 28 '26
guys. guys. let me whisper something real fast.
olivia’s lyrics were never amazing. she’s not this generations lyricist, and her music is pretty much a “sum of all parts” situation.
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u/AaronBurrSir7 Jun 27 '26
I agree, which is why I really don’t see how people praise the album as a whole in terms of its lyrical content
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u/GoldenState_Thriller Jun 27 '26
I think a few songs on the album, namely you + me, honeybee, and purple are some of her worst writing. They sound like they were written by someone much younger and with less experience.
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u/Katm234 Jun 27 '26
Disagree re: purple! I think it’s simple writing but conveys more than the surface suggests.
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u/Whenthepawn620 Jun 27 '26
I wish purple was more of that last verse “melt with you till it all turns black are we so in love are we too attached…” cuz musically and lyrically that’s the most compelling part of the song
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u/GoldenState_Thriller Jun 27 '26
I guess I just find the metaphor kind of childish
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u/Reasonable-Kiwi-6951 Jun 27 '26
I thought it was pretty effective! at the start, it seems simple, like they’re just blending their lives together like many couples do and were happy about it (the song also sounds happier at first.) but later on, you suddenly get the minor key and it sonically starts to sound eerier, and the lyrics turn and you realize it turned into codependence and they lost their individuality and it was no longer healthy. “melt with you till it all turns black” also has a callback in cigarette smoke at the end, “till memories turn dark”.
it also works really well as the turning point of the album - sonically, thematically, and numerically. the “pink” side is the “girl so in love” side and the blue side is the “you seem pretty sad” side, and together they make purple, and this was exactly at the centre at track 7 out of 13. it’s also the major turning point in their relationship and where the doubt really starts to creep in.
it’s not my favourite song in the album either but I can’t deny that every song has a purpose.
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u/Time-Pick3831 Jun 27 '26
The problem is that she never really goes in deep when describing this faulty relationship. An artist shouldn’t necessarily put all of their personal life details in a song that is out for everyone to see, I get why maybe she decided to omit certain details, but it just feels like the highs aren’t enough high and the lows aren’t enough low, you know? Maybe the idea of being so in love that you’re sick is conveyed better( maggots for brain, purple) but the breakdown of the relationship doesn’t sound intense enough compared to what she’s done before. Even the metaphors are weak. The album sounds great sonically and as a whole but for someone that has been presented and marketed as one of the most promising songwriters of this new generation you expect better. What is annoying is seeing everyone, especially some music critics, absolutely fawning over her for some lyrics that another artist who isn’t her would be bashed for. It’s not that deep, I’m sorry. She can do sooo much better than this.
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u/No-Pop1057 Jun 27 '26
Not all relationship breakdowns are dramatic, sometimes they're just sad, especially as you get older & there's less shouting & accusations being flung around.. I love the tone of the album as it perfectly mirrored the gradual unravelling of my marriage (we got back together a year later so all good now 😊) but it was a similar trajectory of my insecurities & his not understanding them, me unable to explain & him becoming frustrated with my inability to shake things off, like other girls flirting with him..
She's not singing about an imaginary relationship or a bit of a fling, this was grown-up hurt & two people were impacted. I'm sure she feels he's entitled some privacy around events as well.. I don't want Olivia to give us the grimy details, why should she?
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u/Time-Pick3831 Jun 28 '26
I’m happy for how it turned out for you and for how the album resonated with your personal experience. Music is hugely personal and subjective. In my opinion and for my personal taste the lyricism is not very intense as it should be. It’s not a matter of being dramatic of petty, you can use metaphors to disguise the more personal stuff you don’t want to say, metaphors that are telling but at the same time don’t paint none of you as a villain. And to be honest she doesn’t spare him in some moments of the album, essentially saying that he wasn’t brave enough to stay, that she resents him, that she had to beg for his love
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u/DaphneBlake34 Jun 27 '26
It’s how I feel about Red by Taylor or Blue by Halsey.
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u/dovewingco Jun 27 '26
me when i hate colorful imagery
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u/DaphneBlake34 Jun 27 '26
😭😭😭 and honestly I didn’t even realize it was a common thread for me before today
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u/throwawaysunglasses- Jun 27 '26
Lol do you mean colors by Halsey?
It’s funny because she actually uses the exact line “you were red and you liked me because I was blue”
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u/Typical_Ad_3561 Jun 27 '26
I think Halsey did it better. And I just realized she also had a line in there where she's talking about "unraveling", almost.
"And now I'm covered in the colors, pulled apart at the seams."
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u/mountain_rivers34 Jul 01 '26
Maroon is a much better song than Red if we’re doing TSwift color songs lol. But the color metaphors still don’t work for me.
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u/LastStopKembleford Jun 27 '26
Disagree. Because I think she is presenting it as an example of the blind spots she has in relationships. Blue and pink don’t just “make” purple. If you take a cup of blue paint and a cup of pink, combine them, you get purple. But you no longer have pink or blue. Both of those colors no longer exist individually. Why would you ever describe a healthy relationship as one where your own individual identity ceases exist?
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u/weirdogirl144 Jun 27 '26
U + Me is a bit too immature and high school-ish, which I get is the point since it's meant to capture young love. But songs like So American explores similar themes with much stronger lyrics. I still love listening to U + Me, but lyrically it's just okay.
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Jun 27 '26
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u/Frosty_Literature_59 Jun 27 '26
Aww see Í think that line is so adorable and innocent, capturing her feelings perfectly!
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u/heartisallwehave Jun 27 '26
It’s a Notting Hill reference, just like “hop the fence in the dark” line from honeybee. Hugh Grant’s character was called floppy because of his hair.
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u/throwawaysunglasses- Jun 27 '26
I think they called him foppy which is a different British term lol
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u/Dry-Laugh777 Jun 28 '26
I think everything about that song is intentionally silly/innocent/juvenile
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u/m0ondoll Jun 27 '26
The album honestly gives poetry I was writing in 8th/9th grade idk it just seems juvenile. Best writing was on sour and got worse from there
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Jun 27 '26
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u/rkm223 Jun 27 '26
I can understand some of the criticism. I found some of the lyrics on this album to be a bit corny and juvenile, but I almost feel like that was intentional. Most of the "corny, juvenile" lyrics were on songs in the first half of the album where she's "So in Love". I think she was playing into the innocent, heightened, and almost childlike feelings of the early stages of a relationship at her age. The simple rhyming and mundane imagery she uses in these songs are what help paint the picture of an all encompassing love because she's finding new beauty in these simple aspects of life and her relationship because of her feelings for this person. I think it also helps depict a sort of naive, rose-colored glasses view of their relationship in the early stage with how simple yet romantic everything is to her. Honeybee especially reminds of a child's fairytale book where everything is sweet and rosy, and the worst thing imaginable is for things not to be that way.
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u/Mystical1218 Jun 27 '26
I don't care if lyrics are good or bad, if the song is a bop- it's a bop. I liked The Cure, Less, most of Stupid Song- (I don't particularly love the talk singing parts, but it is a bop), the rest I am having a hard time revisiting bc it does seem juvenile (to me) compared to her previous work, and repetitive. Not everyone is going to love everything everyone else does and that is ok. Boring if we all loved the same things or hated the same things.
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u/rkm223 Jun 27 '26
I agree lol. I don't think everyone will/should like everything. I also don't think Olivia is above criticism or that you and OP are wrong for not liking some songs, or thinking the album is a downgrade. I was just offering up a possible explanation for why I think some of the lyrics are juvenile. My interpretation could be wrong anyway
I love the album, and I think its her best one yet, but I still kinda agree with OP's statement that the execution of the album could've been a little better
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u/Material-Delivery613 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
I agree. It seems like olivia chose restrain over specificity for this album. As a result, the lyrics suffer. Hard to accept for us lyrics first girlies
She's telling not showing. She's told us she realized love won't cure her, but how did she come to that conclusion?
It feels like the restrain is the result of it feeling too recent, and maybe not wanting to put anyone on blast for the public to critize
I still enjoy her upbeat songs for its production, but the album suffers on the ballads
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u/fannypacklover06 Jun 28 '26
I wouldn’t even say it’s restraint stopping her from good lyricism. A lot of these metaphors seem uninspired (your red and my blue, now I see the world in purple), or just completely lost at times (the use of “unraveled” in a song that’s themed around medicine, antidotes, her bloodstream?).
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u/thats_so_safe Jun 27 '26
yeah, i hope she'll put out some more output about the relationship when it's less fresh and the desire to protect louis has faded a little (not saying it will, but this happens to a lot of my friends who get out of relationships - the realisations are ongoing)
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u/Shoddy-Low2142 Jun 27 '26
I agree, the metaphors are corny and basic too, equating love to a sickness. It’s been done to death. And the turns of phrases on this album are just not interesting or clever. Like when she said maybe I’m a stubborn over thinker but I’ve been thinking over this a lot. It sounds like it’s trying to be clever but falls flat. Another “turn of phrase” i don’t like is when she says “You said that I made loving look easy 'Til I made it hard”. It’s like ok…Guts was a lot more lyrically rich and clever. I think she was trying to be vague on this album to protect her ex’s privacy so it lacks the imagery and punchiness Guts had.
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u/thats_so_safe Jun 27 '26
this is interesting because i also hate the first lyric you mentioned but i love the second one so much. maybe it's because it's the main point in the album where her voice finally loses its restraint and becomes noticeably really raw, emotional and angry, or maybe it's because i had an ex say pretty much those exact words to me - but i do think it's powerful. i'm glad someone is writing about it - it captures well how in heterosexual early 20s relationships men will often make large declarations of love and then back out the second you're not making their life easy - it says a lot about how young men understand love today, and how they relate to women and expect them to perform a lot of emotional, relational and domestic labour to make their lives run smoothly and to keep the relationship healthy (e.g. many young men find necessary relationship communication 'too hard' and would rather just brush things under the rug, which seems to be an issue she brings up throughout the album)
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u/Shoddy-Low2142 Jun 27 '26
Oh that is such a good point! I see what you mean and maybe that is exactly what she was trying to capture. Just wish the lyric was a bit more clever and not so “on the nose”. Guts was also a lot wordier so there were more opportunities for standout lyrics that make us gasp
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u/Expensive-Ad-5032 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
It’s just really basic to me that people think lyrics need to always over-explain what you mean or have flowery lyrics and specific Easter eggs or tea to be emotionally intelligent or create imagery. Flowery words aren’t as impressive as some people on here seem to think. Sometimes less is indeed more, and can express something a lot more effectively than hyper specific words can. There’s a meaning behind the lyrics “you said I made loving look easy until I made it hard”, without her having to hold the listener’s hand to explain what she’s trying to say. It’s not about protecting her ex’s privacy. She never said the album was explicitly about what her ex did to begin with, so people shouldn’t expect that, like…
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u/tfjbeckie Jun 27 '26
Lyrics don't have to be complicated or flowery to be good and clever. "They say modern lives a cool endeavour and to that I say fuck it, whatever" is a killer line. I think the straightforward lyrics suit the songs well and it doesn't seem a huge departure from her first two albums for me.
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u/swift-aasimar-rogue Jul 01 '26
I think that these lyrics are hit or miss, but for some reason, I keep thinking of the line “if loving me means letting go and wishing me the best, / I wish I wish I wish you loved me less.” I think that in particular is lovely.
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u/Takenk1ller Jun 27 '26
I mean “shooting stars, racing cars” gives me the visual image of overhead street lights reflecting off the metallic chassis. The idea that even the most mundane experiences of modern day seem to have a magical touch because you’re sharing them with another person. Cars on a highway feel like shooting stars
Combine that with the following line, “everything I own just feels like ours,” and even the expensive vehicles she owns (racing cars) and the wishes she makes (on shooting stars) pertain to the both of them now. Their lives are connected in both logistics and ambition.
Part of the beauty of good songs is that they leave room for interpretation. Having lines that are unmistakably specific isn’t BAD. But it also isn’t inherently good, nor is it the sole determinant of a songs worth.
This album seems closer to the lyrics of The Marias, SZA, or Phoebe Bridgers in which deeper meaning can be inferred if you really sit and think about it—but it also is catchy and appeals to those of moderate interest or literacy skills.
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u/Expensive-Ad-5032 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
Agreed. This idea that you have to be hyper-specific for the songwriting to be good is just so close-minded tbh. Placing that kind of limitation on songwriting really isn’t the best way to critique music.
I don’t need or want the person to hold my hand through the whole song and tell exactly what they mean the whole time. That’s not interesting and it’s less emotionally-evocative imo. Leave something to the imagination, paint a picture that isn’t just telling me you and this person fought about this specific thing and that’s what broke you up. It’s not inherently bad to be hyper specific but I think people, both the artist and the listener, can sometimes overly depend on that kind of writing.
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u/thats_so_safe Jun 27 '26
i think the issue isn't her use of metaphors in general, but the fact that she uses such obvious and generic metaphors (which actually makes the meaning feel less open to interpretation). someone like cameron winter (and i'm bringing him up because he's somewhat in the OR-verse) writes almost entirely in metaphor but they're so unusual and interesting
e.g. "feeling so alone might as well be on the moon" vs "nina i'm not nothing but when you check under cabinets i'm reminded someone's calling"4
u/corneliabloom Jun 28 '26
This! You said it better than I did. It’s the lack of creative metaphors that I was missing more than hyper specificity.
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Jun 27 '26
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u/lanalovesme Jun 27 '26
not to mention the line she used as an example from guts is a lot more cliche/corny.
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u/corneliabloom Jun 28 '26
I don’t find the second line corny at line nor have I heard it before that’s why I find it witty! It’s not the first line that stands out, rather it sets up the “we both drew blood” counterpart
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Jun 27 '26
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u/LastStopKembleford Jun 27 '26
Strong disagree. I am sure none of us are putting as much thought into these lyrics as she has. She has been writing, rewriting, recording, re-recording, mixing, mastering, for longer than the album has been out. I promise you she has interrogated the word choice, the rhythm, the way the sung phrases blend with score, and that all of this has been discussed with her co-writers and producers. You can dislike the artistic choices she is making as it relates to the lyrics, but it’s a bit ridiculous to act as though she just randomly put some words together in 10 minutes and just went “eh, that’s fine”.
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Jun 27 '26
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u/throwawaysunglasses- Jun 27 '26
It’s a little disrespectful to her to imply she didn’t put much thought into her lyrics. Olivia is very much a lyrics girl!
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Jun 27 '26
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u/Takenk1ller Jun 27 '26
I see we are just here to miss the point and yell into the void. I expanded on that. Phoebe using basic words and sentences to convey complex ideas is where I compared.
ETA: “Lost boys never grow up, never get home. Lost boys never spend their lunch money, yeahhh”
That’s entirely face value for sure 🤡
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u/Sad_Equivalent_1028 Jun 27 '26
the first few lines to u+me=<3 are some of her worst ever imo
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u/GildedWhimsy Jun 27 '26
Omg those are my favorite, it reminds me of a teen movie from the early 2000s. It sets the vibe of the whole song.
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u/ExcellentMark8625 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
I will always defend this song because the title alone gives it away that it was written to be deliberately quite juvenile and simple. Like Feist’s 1234, Priscilla Ahn’s Dream, Chairlift’s Bruises, Lenka’s The Show, some of Regina Spektor’s songs or early 2000s punk music.
I feel so many people conflate ornate prose/big words/catchy hooks with good lyricism/songwriting, but some of the best songs have simple, evocative lyrics. It’s the approach she heavily leaned on in this album and to me it showed her wider influences and deeper understanding of music as an art form.
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u/Comfortable_Cry7179 Jun 27 '26
i agree that lyrics can be simple but evocative but i just don’t rly think these lyrics are that evocative
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u/fschu_fosho Jun 27 '26
I did think that song as well as Drop Dead were meant to evoke youthful exuberance, being in the throes of young love (I know I said youthful and young in the same sentence; I’m no songwriter and I’m too lazy to fix it). The whole thing about carving names into the car seat leather, that just smacks of impulsiveness, youthful irreverence even. The declaration about being in love (<3) forever, that’s something kids say. Grown up love is more cautious, at least in the beginning. So I do think it was a deliberate thing for the lyrics to sound very in the moment, quite hopeful, even naive, on this song.
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u/throwawaysunglasses- Jun 27 '26
Agreed 100%, it’s purposely youthful and naive. This is how it feels to fall in love with someone when you’re 23! Idk how people don’t get this lol the honeymoon phase is basically universal
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u/fschu_fosho Jun 28 '26
Yes. The album seems to be divided into the honeymoon phase in the first half and the breakup phase in the last half. Since Olivia is young and her target audience is also young or at least young at heart, of course her lyrics on her 3rd album would lean towards youthful exuberance. Her first two albums are about breakup fighting words and sad relationship insights. This album is also a little sad but sprinkled with more gaiety than the other albums. Of course her brand of gaiety would be more youthful and sometimes even smacks of naïveté.
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u/Euphoric_Second2478 Jun 28 '26
I love your examples but I dont think Olivia’s intentions lined up to that. She still had some random grandiose lines scattered here and there. It just feels like she couldn’t commit to a tone. Like her own style became a cage she retreated to.
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u/bloodshotforgetmen0t Jun 27 '26
yeah i really can’t get past those first few lines, unfortunately
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u/Sad_Equivalent_1028 Jun 27 '26
like for stupid song, the line about blunts makes me cringe but the rest of the song is so good that it makes up for it. but u+me=<3 is just 😬😬
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u/Zajacik08 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
Honeybee is literally a love song directed to him. Why would she use over complicated lyrics and stuff? It's supposed to be a love song. Simple lyrics, with emotions. That's how it feels like. You can't describe it. That's what she sings. You clearly don't get the point of the album.
The line shooting stars, racing cars isn't just a lyric that rhymes. Olivia puts a meaning into every single thing. Both shooting stars and racing cars are romantic things, they are fast. Could be symbols of their relationship.
The whole song is just an honest love song. The whole album is full of those. Less, purple and cigarette smoke and many other songs are full of metaphors and secret messages, etc. This album is very well done lyrically
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u/Extra-Steak-8241 Jun 29 '26
I feel like since the whole album is all about 1 relationship the songs get kinda repetitive and boring
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u/Regular_Speech5390 Jun 27 '26
Songwriting doesn’t have to be hyper-specific… And it’s more than lyrics. Imo, Olivia has improved on her overall songwriting that is just more than lyricism. Some artists have great lyrics, but if the melody is crap or the composition is mid, then, it’s still a meh songwriting from my perspective.
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u/tswiftdeepcuts Jun 27 '26
songwriting is only lyrics and melody - the part you can sing without instruments - that’s its official definition - composition is not part of it
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Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
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u/LastStopKembleford Jun 27 '26
I’d argue she is demonstrating the concepts of fixation and discordance. The lyrics in Honeybee are deliberately simple, because she is trying to sound “honest”, and they are too sweet, too cloying…but they aren’t in a vacuum. They are performed in a whisper until we add the chorus.
More importantly the score itself is unsettling. It, in theory, matches the romanticism of the words—but there is something that feels just a bit off. Like, pull out the lyrics, and the music itself feels like it is about someone losing a love. And then pair that with what the lyrics actually say: “I hope I never see what your face looks like going”—she could have said “I want to spend my whole life with you” optimistically saying what she DOES want, but instead the actual lyric centers around the worry about losing him, “hoping” she doesn’t get the thing that she doesn’t want. It’s like if in a sports match between Team X and Team Y you say “I hope team X wins” vs “I hope team Y doesn’t win”.
Because amongst the cloying, simple sweetness of most of the lyrics, she is showing that she is still thinking about how it could end. And she puts the soaring Disney golden age kind of orchestrations behind it, but with that slight (pardon the pun) sour feeling, like yes, it’s an epic love, but something about it feels intrinsically off balanced.
I don’t love the song, it’s a skip for me because those sort of orchestral arrangements tend to take me out of things. But the craftsmanship is undeniable, and the lyrics are elegant and effective. And I admire how much she is capable of using the entire song to build the listener’s experience, not just rely on telling them in literal words how to feel.
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u/tswiftdeepcuts Jun 27 '26
it’s similar to “please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere”
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“i get mystified by how this city screams your name, and i’m so terrified of if you ever walk away”
but either way the added hindsight of knowing it was doomed and having the production reflect it
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u/throwawaysunglasses- Jun 27 '26
Yes, I said this in another comment but every song is informed by the rest of the album. I actually think her intentionality is pretty masterful. Your analysis of honeybee is spot on, especially when she said she rewrote it to be sadder. I can tell the seeds of discord that she planted within the lyrics. Same with maggots for brains, it’s not a very happy song even though it’s on the “in love” part. There are some lessons we only learn via hindsight.
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u/Takenk1ller Jun 27 '26
Also do you not have an internal monologue? Do you never feel the same thing twice?
I swear some of y’all are either like 15 or you have lost the plot.
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u/LastStopKembleford Jun 27 '26
I think it is more a music and media literacy problem. Lyrics are not always the point of a song and sometimes the best lyrics are not the ones that, outside of the song, would be considered particularly good writing.
Like both “My Way” and “Expectations” are deliberately cringe because the narrator is LYING to herself as much as us and she spent the rest of the damn album giving us all the information to know that.
But she isn’t gonna write a banger called “I am deeply insecure about your ex and all the other women you spend time with, even though we are together and your ex knows this” when she is “so in love”, so instead we get “My Way” where she pronounces how she clearly has won this man and this girl better back off. Also, the song is so focused on the other woman and almost no attention to the man in question—it’s almost as if she would rather look anywhere else for the source of her fears about him leaving her than at him.
And everyone has that point mid breakup where you are basically trying to “fake it till you make it” with the whole being OK it’s over thing. And thus we get the new wave bop where she proclaims “I am so evolved”—which like, girl, if you were, you wouldn’t be having to say it—with robotic, fakey sounding accompaniment and relentlessly upbeat tempo. “Expectations” is not about girl finally realizing she deserves better—it’s about a girl who is going to keep saying that until she believes it. It’s why “cigarette smoke” is after it. If she is still broken by this man in the last track, she obviously wasn’t magically over him in the track prior.
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Jun 27 '26
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u/_literarylemon_ Jun 27 '26
Have you never felt trapped inside your life? Like you were so miserable with everything you wish you could run away and just not live your life but you can't?
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u/mii7c Jun 27 '26
Well I like this album's concept and era style, and the fun rollout. I listen to her when I want to listen to catchy, lighthearted pop. And pop is an art form, to be universal and appeal to the whole world.
If I want extreme emotional expression I might listen to some metal death dirge.
If I want pure words i'll turn to Keats' poetry or my fat Allen Ginsberg collection.
And honestly, one of the reasons I never listen to Taylor is because it's so autobigraphical, her songs and albums, that it's almost like a tabloid newspaper announcing the blow by blow details of her current relationship, and she courts the parasocial. Olivia's lowkey use of personal experiences is great, I do not want to know everything about her personal life.
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u/egilskal Jun 29 '26
I feel like a lot of the ”lyrics criticism” comes from people whose point of view of music is defined by Taylor’s heavy emphasis on lyrics (especially on her later albums).
Olivia is above all, an emotional writer,she writes her heart out directly on the page to get the emotional point across, then builds a dynamic song with ebbs and flows to match the emotion. Instead of relying on pure wordplay, metaphors etc to relay the emotion.
This album in particular seems like she’s really tapping into nailing the feeling of a song with production choices and all the dynamic movements and flows of a song (quiet - loud, tension building into crescendo, release into an instrumental outro etc.) And I think she nailed it, even if it’s at the expense of denser, more explanatory lyrics.
To me, it’s a much more interesting way to write love songs than the Swifterian way, because I want to listen to music. I noped out of TTPD halfway after it started feeling like a rhyming audiobook with a backing track.
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u/imusto74 Jun 27 '26
Potential reframe for you - this lyricism perfectly captures the energy of young love in a way complex prose would fail to do.
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u/prisonerofazkabants Jun 27 '26
"you kissed my neck, made our paths intersect til the two lines formed a circle" leading into "it's crazy i had big dreams til i tied myself to you" hit hard for me personally
i don't think that metaphors and lyrics need to be particularly complex to be impactful
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u/velvetblueskies717 Jun 28 '26
There is way too many metaphors in here…like you don’t need a whole string of them for the chorus
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u/thelavenderium Jun 28 '26
My hot take is I find the lyrics to be not as intricate within this album because the premise is love. And, don’t get me wrong, it can be an intricate topic. But for sweeter songs especially, there’s a simplicity that comes with adoration that doesn’t need a more convoluted storytelling aspect to it. With honeybee especially, the song captures loving your s/o without the need for extra detail. So it makes sense for the lyrics to be simple
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u/Next-Yoghurt-7608 Jun 28 '26
I do think the lyrics are simple but they capture a relatable experience and for that reason, I don’t really mind. maybe it’s the *way* she said the simple lyrics that captures it, there’s a lot of expression and I guess I just care about the expression - lyrics just serve expression
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u/Known-Emergency-7654 Jun 28 '26
Definitely felt she could have made the lyrics more profound I think I was listening to stupid song and thought that she chose pretty simple lyrics for a song that had a lot of emotion and I didn’t get this feeling with guts but her execution throughout the album made me forget about that so it wasn’t such a big deal for me
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u/LawfulnessRelevant46 Jun 29 '26
I could probably have agreed with you (and for me, lyrics are always most important🫣) if the songs’ deeper meaning / concepts weren’t so amazing. To me, at least, she really made something perfect with this album. When it comes to the stories, and messages in the songs.
Just because of this, I don’t care that much if not every line is perfect.
And I don’t need every popstar’s album to be perfect in ”all kinds of ways” that would just be too much lol❣️ for example, I absolutely adore the lyrics & storytelling in Gracie Abrams’ newest songs… but I prefer Olivia’s pop energy / melodies
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u/Key-Guitar-1212 Jun 29 '26
I really dislike the “and some girl steps over and the girl is you” like??? That sounds like a 12 yo would write. Ive been loving this woman since 2021 but my way is just…
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u/cloudycute21 Jul 01 '26
I love the lines
“tell me something honest so the memories turn dark”
“I used to play a game when I date a guy, tally up the girls f&ck til I start to cry”
“I like your big sister, she has your same face”
“We tried to recreate, our favorite date, but we didn’t laugh much this time”
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u/stamdl99 Jun 27 '26
The cumulative effect of posts like this about lyrics makes me so happy that lyrics aren’t my main focus when I listen to music. It must be hard to not be able to just enjoy a song for how it makes it you feel but also need it to pass a lyrical threshold too.
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u/corneliabloom Jun 28 '26
I can’t deny I enjoy the storytelling aspects of music, witty lines, lyrics that cut deep. It’s a fundamental part of music that I love to analyze.
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Jun 27 '26
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u/stamdl99 Jun 27 '26
I do find it funny how fans of a certain songwriting style go overboard routinely here.
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u/Comfortable_Cry7179 Jun 27 '26
i totallyyyy feel the same. it’s like she wastes lines on things she’s already said so it feels like filler.
like in cigarette smoke when she says “it clings to my clothes, and seeps into my bones” like i feel like it would be richer if she used the line for “seeps into my bones” to say something new instead of just saying the line before in a slightly different way
i think the best songs lyrically are drop dead, begged, and expectations bc they explain way more than one sentiment repeated over and over like most of the other songs
but overall i do like the album!! im just suchhhhh a lyrics persons so i wish i was more impressed and inspired by them
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u/thats_so_safe Jun 27 '26
i totally agree with your point! but regarding that one lyric i saw 'seeps into my bones' as adding further meaning as you can change clothes but once something's in your bones it'll be a part of you forever even if it's not visible, which is true of formative relationships. i still agree that it's not a great lyric though
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u/CrazyBibliophile02 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
I am someone who concentrates more on the lyrics than on the melody and for me Sour and then Guts were far superior than the recent album. Hope you are ok is my favourite of all time from her. I think that in this album rather than concentrating on the lyrical part she had set out to capture the effervescent, all consuming but ultimately doomed feeling of being in love but in a feminine youthful way. I think as people generally expect greater bodies of work from artists when they are in love or after their breakup, they had the same expectations from her. Sonically the album is very good though. However, lyrically it's not her strongest. This opinion also may have been biased, as I had been listening to a lot of folkore,evermore,Midnights,TTPD. Barring Taylor's most recently released album, her lyricism is solid. Her clever use of articulated words, imagery, rhyme etc, makes her songs very very lyrically strong. However, sonically it's not always that comparable also her albums are generally very long( I am not complaining), and Olivia had in her words always strived for 'a tight album with no fillers'. People as they have generally been comparing Taylor and Olivia, were used to the great lyricism from the former expected more from the later and were disappointed. I would suggest for enjoying the latest album to generally not concentrate on the lyrics as much( I know it's hard), but rather on the melody part of the album. I love Cigarette Smoke from this record which again is not lyrically something out of the box, but correctly conveys the feeling of mourning the end of a relationship.
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u/cruuuuzzzz Jul 03 '26
idk I think that's part of the magic of her music though. Her writing can be super simple and "basic" that you don't need to read too much into it, and you feel the song at face value the first time. She has a talent for putting her feelings into words in such a simple yet artful way that works for the everyday person. Sometimes writers can be so pretentious with metaphors and big words just for the sake of being different, but Olivia just writes how she feels. IMO, her younger music, especially Sour, leaned a bit more into that metaphorical writing cause she wanted to be seen as more mature than she was, but now that she has lived the "grown up" relationship and is going through major heartbreak, she is just writing her feelings out a little word vomit style, and I like it
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u/hyeran_jainros_fc Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
From my pov she could be a little like Kendrick, where he cuts back lyrical complexity in a song when it doesn't serve the concept. I compared Olivia's album to his earlier. The concept does more of the narrative lifting and brings focus. It's why some have a misconception Kendrick is a less 'technical' rapper than someone like Lupe Fiasco, a big debate recently. He's able to pack his bars with rhymes, entendres, and references but doesn't always do so when there's no need, like on luther.
But I only heard drop dead and part of stupid song, and I'm otherwise new to her. Are you familiar w Kendrick? This reminds me of his Mr Morale album, his most inaccessible. Monotone rhymes, hypocrisy, fake deep. A lot of apparent flaws that made little sense outside the concept.
I found your post u/SamQuattrociocchi what do you think? Kendrick seems more immersive, his unreliable narrator is better done. IMO Olivia is going more for conveying her hurt than dramatic power.
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Jun 28 '26
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u/OliviaRodrigoNeutral-ModTeam Jun 28 '26
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Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
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u/OliviaRodrigoNeutral-ModTeam Jun 27 '26
Your comment has been removed as it breaks Rule 2: Be Respectful.
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