{"id":451268,"date":"2026-05-29T14:55:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/451268\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T14:55:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:55:17","slug":"i-dont-know-i-tried-to-not-let-it-get-to-me-or-upset-me-i-think-i-just-try-to-keep-it-trucking-five-years-on-from-their-songwriting-credit-drama-olivia-rodrigo-responds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/451268\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI don\u2019t know. I tried to not let it get to me or upset me. I think I just try to keep it trucking\u201d: Five years on from their songwriting credit drama, Olivia Rodrigo responds to being asked if she has a frosty relationship with Taylor Swift"},"content":{"rendered":"

Olivia Rodrigo is, understandably, keen to talk about her new album, You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love<\/a>, which will be released on 12 June.<\/p>\n

However, during a new interview with The New York Times\u2019 Popcast, hosts Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli couldn\u2019t resist asking her about something that happened at the start of her music career \u2013 specifically, the time that she was seemingly forced to give a co-writing credit on one of her early songs to Taylor Swift.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The song in question is Deja Vu<\/a>, Rodrigo\u2019s second single, and the fifth track on her 2021 debut album, Sour. At the time, Rodrigo was keen to tell the world how much Swift had inspired her, and freely admitted that 1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back, another song on the album, interpolated Swift\u2019s song New Year\u2019s Day, from her 2017 record, Reputation. As such, both Swift and her co-writer, Jack Antonoff, received credits.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

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However, the case of Deja Vu \u2013 a somewhat ironic title, as it turns out \u2013 was different. In this instance, Swift and Antonoff (and also St Vincent<\/a>) were only credited as co-writers several months after the song had been released \u2013 and, perhaps notably, after Rodrigo had said in an interview with Rolling Stone that Deja Vu\u2019s bridge was at least partly inspired by the one in another Swift song: 2019\u2019s Cruel Summer.<\/p>\n

Olivia Rodrigo – deja vu (Official Video) – YouTube
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“We wanted to write a bridge,” Rodrigo explained. “I wanted it to be really high-energy \u2019cause the rest of the song is so serene and eerily calm. But I wanted the last bridge to go crazy and I love Cruel Summer. It\u2019s one of my favourite songs ever. I love, like, the yelly vocals in it<\/a>, like the harmonised yells that she does. I think they\u2019re, like, super electric and moving, so I wanted to do something like that.”<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been noted that Rodrigo became notably less effusive in her praise of Swift after the credits incident, and when asked about it subsequently, she\u2019s always tried to deflect the question while also not exactly putting the issue to bed.<\/p>\n

You could say a similar thing about her answer to Caramanica, who asked Rodrigo directly if there\u2019s now a \u201cfrost\u201d between herself and Swift.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d she replied, after taking a breath. \u201cI think I tried to not let it, like, get to me or upset me. I think I just try to keep it trucking. I think there\u2019s no\u2026 it was so long ago, there\u2019s no use in, like, harping on it, and yeah, I just try to make songs that I love and try to be kind and good to other people and supportive of other people, and I\u2019ve always like tried to be like that, and at the end of the day, I think that\u2019s that\u2019s all you can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read into that what you will, but one takeaway could be that Rodrigo feels that not everyone has been kind, good and supportive to her in the past.<\/p>\n

Speaking more generally about being influenced by other artists \u2013 three months after the release of Good 4 U, another song on Sour, Paramore\u2019s Hayley Williams and Josh Faro were credited as co-writers based on its similarity to their 2007 song, Misery Business \u2013 Rodrigo was unapologetic.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a fan girl. I love music, and nobody can take that away,\u201d she said. \u201cI love music, and I feel so lucky that I get to do what I do, and I love so many songs, and you know, I\u2019ve grown up being surrounded with awesome music and awesome bands, and I truly just do feel so lucky, and I love writing songs. I would be writing songs if nobody listened, and everyone hated it, and everyone thought I was bad. I would still be writing songs, because it\u2019s what I love to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, Rodrigo has certainly had some great experiences with many of her heroes. Even after the Cruel Summer drama, she collaborated with St Vincent, one of the parties involved, on 2024 single Obsessed, and went on to play St Vincent\u2019s signature guitar model on stage while she was performing it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And then, of course, there\u2019s her ongoing friendship with The Cure\u2019s Robert Smith, which began when she duetted with him at Glastonbury in 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Add to the fact that she\u2019s been able to pay tribute to Jack White, another of her inspirations, at The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame<\/a>, and convinced The Breeders, who she also loves, to go out on tour with her, and we\u2019re guessing that Rodrigo is pretty happy with her musical friendships right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Olivia Rodrigo is, understandably, keen to talk about her new album, You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-451268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}