Between the multitude of ringers—one of them is smearing presumably SOUR icing on a cupcake, whereas another is taking a country ode by keying her ex's car—this particular Olivia Rodrigo hit pause on track eight’s ‘get him back!’ Instead, she mosied up the GUTS tracklist staircase to ‘making the bed.’ It’s on the sixth step, only two steps above. But while the former serves revenge with clashing drums, this piano ballad is more self-aware.
The lyrics reveal her inner conflict—that’s due to her inability to hide behind a grungy, early 2000s-inspired production! Noticeably, it shines its high beams on verse two. We’re using this metaphor because Olivia seems to have a way of comparing her feelings to cars.
On breakout single ‘drivers license,’ unrequited love is yet to be in the rearview mirror. Her only navigational route is a lap around her ex’s neighborhood, as the intro packs in the atmospheric sounds of a revving engine. Here, “Where I'm drivin' through the city, and the brakes go out on me” in a nightmare she wakes from, it’s those same feelings of being off-kilter. She knows her self-destructive patterns but can’t seem to depart from them. Or, in the case of her ex, let him go.
Of course, set introspective nightmares aside, and ‘making the bed’ is a daily chore we all do, no? It's not just us ordinary folk but also sticker-bespeckled superstars. However, we thought we’d play with this title to make it fun! How else would we do that by turning GUTS lyrics into morning alarm ringtones? We know, “Seein' you tonight, it's a bad idea, right?” is already what’s greeting your ex when he goes to voicemail. But what about those sun rays seeping through the window in the early hours, too? We need Olivia’s voice to be the first thing we hear every morning. So we’ve provided you with six choices and will let you decide on the perfect one!
Olivia Rodrigo: "Try to rationalize, people are people / But it's like you're made of angel dust"
The first one off the rack has a tiny disclaimer: it’s not just about the lyrics. We know, we know! The only criteria for these ringtone alarms were that the lyrics selected had to be the sort one would simultaneously find on an astrological meme. But seeing as the astral realm-like production provides the impactful punch for how enviously beautiful Olivia finds ‘Lacy,’ we’re going with it! The pitch attached to “dust” elongates and twists around lightly clamoring drums until it filters away. What’s interesting about an angel representing Olivia’s ideal female representation is that if we switch it up to look at the contrast, her jealousy must be devilsome. We just hope our morning starts on that same featherlight note!
"And I fell for you like water / Falls from the February sky"
Olivia has a wonderful ability to create poetic couplets. Sometimes, it’s not just about what the tune says as a whole, but those two sentences that run off each other. An example of this is in ‘logical,’ an intimate send-off to the toxicity of her previous relationship. More so, its outro turns into an acapella moment as you can barely hear the piano backing! However, we’re hanging out in the first verse, where the lyric is.
Now, how about America’s weather pattern? Though they would technically be in winter, the sun peaks for at least 10 hours during the day. Which is a lot, considering the rainfall is only 48mm! Thereby, she fell for him slowly and naturally. However, she also notes, “But now the current's stronger / No, I couldn't get out if I tried.” While the relationship was healthy initially, the toxicity has taken away the love, and has fallen into addiction. This ringtone alarm is for those mornings when you need a reminder that you did the right thing by walking away!
"I am light as a feather, I'm as stiff as a board / I pay attention to things that most people ignore"
Chances are you’ve already edited together a 60-second TikTok with all of the aesthetically pleasing shots you could find on your camera roll with this lyric. So, why not spend time with it by making it your morning alarm ringtone?
It’s our greeting lyric off GUTS, aka the first thing we hear Olivia sing after the space between her debut and the sophomore album. Backed up by guitar pluckings, her voice even does this magical seesaw around the word “ignore.” Additionally, the second verse uses the first part of the lyric: “I am light as a feather. I'm as fresh as the air.” From an analytical POV, it’s pointing out how robotic her mannerisms have become to act like the perfect girl. Meanwhile, all of that angst, which reflects how she truly feels, festers to the surface during the chorus.
"I'll blow out the candles, happy birthday to me / Got your whole life ahead of you, you're only nineteen / But I fear that they already got all the best parts of me / And I'm sorry that I couldn't always be your teenage dream"
Have you ever had a situation play out in the waking world that similarly felt like a dream you once experienced? Yeah, that’s our secret nod to SOUR’s ‘deja vu.’ It also introduces one of Olivia’s writing techniques: parallels. Not in terms of parallel parking. She’s not slotting one of those car metaphors we discussed into another verse. Instead, it’s concerning theme callbacks, or, in this case, title callbacks. The closing track on GUTS ‘teenage dream’ is a revisit to ‘brutal’ whereby she’s turned “Where's my f**king teenage dream?” into an actual title.
Olivia pretty much went from a Disney kid, fading into the mirage of the likes of Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus alums, to extraordinary viral fame. That’s a big culture shock, especially for a 17-year-old! Then, considering the dreaded sophomore album, artists start wondering if they can replicate it. Basically, all of that adds up to a whole lot of pressure. However, us Livies knew she could do it! So, while the piano keys spiral out like something found on a Coldplay album, we’ll be the ones supplying the backing tracks for all of the therapy driven questions she asks.
"And he would take us out to parties, and the night would never end / Another song, another club, another bar, another dance / And when hе said something wrong, he'd just fly me to Francе"
Speaking of TikTok, we’re onto you, Olivia.“Another song, another club, another bar, another dance” appears in the alternative-styled ‘get him back!’ for when you’ve moved onto level three of a situationship: dishing out the same emotional torture they’ve delivered to you. And if it sounds familiar, that’s because it seemingly is! Enter Lady Gaga, wearing an open hat with a blonde and black streaked hair bow peeking out. In the meme that became so a part of our vernacular that even Bratz remixed it, she says, “bus, club, 'nother club, 'nother club.” Don’t forget the claps, too, as they compound each word. Olivia’s incorporation of this meme aligns with her being just a part of the millennial club image, which makes it fun! You’re going to wish you woke up from a sleepover with your friends for this one.
"Me who's been makin' the bed / Pull the sheets over my head, yeah / Makin' the bed"
It would make sense for us to return to the song that inspired this article! So before you fall into the actual action of ‘making the bed,’ let’s do just that. Once again, Olivia’s finessed a very simple couplet. Not only is she scoring points for using the song title in the pre-chorus, but she’s providing a contrast. “Me who's been makin' the bed” is a way of her admitting that she’s somewhat at fault for the circumstances that she finds herself in.
However, through the follow-up of “Pull the sheets over my head,” she’s still looking for guidance. It’s similar to when we were kids, and we would hide under the blankets when we were scared, hoping our parents would fight away the monsters that lived underneath the bed. The ‘monsters’ in this equation might be frenemies, manipulative ex-boyfriends, and the pressuring music industry, but she’s still somewhat hoping that if she doesn’t look at them, they might just disappear. Plus, it’s got that fun edge to it when we’re thinking of it in our context. We’re going to stay in bed as long as we want to, even if the alarm never stops ringing!
Morning hours aren’t the only time of day we want to hang out with Olivia. Perhaps when the stage lights dim, making the arena wash out in black? You know we’re already talking about the GUTS World Tour! The international—for now, we’re counting just Europe and America in this mixed bag of countries—dropped earlier this week. It starts in February and wraps up around August. Not one to pin all the pre-sale and related ticketing info as a website bookmark? If selected by Ticketmaster, the American Express Early Access starts on September 20, and the remaining registered tickets are available the day after.