“Jealousy, Jealousy” by Olivia Rodrigo
Looking at the title of this tune, you’re probably thinking to yourself, ‘oh-oh, here comes another Olivia Rodrigo song about her ex-boyfriend having a new girlfriend’. But in fact this is one of only two tracks on the entirety of Sour (the other being “Hope Ur OK“) that is not based on a romantic premise. Instead, what she is singing about is something we can perhaps term social-media anxiety.
In other words, the singer is stricken with “jealousy” alright. But what such feelings of discontent are sourced in is her reactions to social-media by female agemates who, unlike her, appear to be living the perfect life.
These are the girls you may catch on the ‘Gram who are flawlessly beautiful for instance. Or they’re living the good life due to their “daddy’s” wealth. Even their boyfriends tend to be “pretty”. And overall, they do not seem to have any insecurities whatsoever. Or at least that’s how someone like the vocalist at hand perceives them.
Chorus
Or more to the point, as indicated by the chorus, Olivia tends to compare herself to them. And doing is slowly but surely eating away at her self-esteem. And once again, you may be saying to yourself, ‘yes, but this is before she blew up’. That may be true, as Rodrigo has stated she wrote this song early on in the Sour process, and we have reason to believe she has been working on the album since 2020.
But again, there is a point she’s trying to make, or a concern she is addressing. And that’s the fact that, even at her youthful age, she was able to perceive that social media was having too profound an effect on her self-image, making her jealous and all. And to some degree, she’s been able to laugh at the whole matter. But recognizing that such feelings are quite common amongst her entire generation, she still took the issue up in song.
The Moral of the Story
And ultimately, if there is a moral to the story, it would be something like don’t go about comparing yourself to cooler people on social media. Perhaps, based on Rodrigo’s own explanation such is not entirely possible, being sort of a mental auto response, if you will. We’re all bound to see people chillin’ harder than we are and perhaps in response manifest feelings we didn’t even think were there in the first place. So then the moral of the story rather becomes something like being able to recognize such sensations and deading them expeditiously. Or else you may find yourself like the narrator, i.e. someone whose jealousy follows her everywhere she goes.
Facts about “Jealousy, Jealousy”
Olivia Rodrigo wrote this song in partnership with Dan Nigro and Casey Smith. Smith is a vocalist from Los Angeles who has worked with quite a few boy bands.
And “Jealousy, Jealousy” marks the only track on Sour where a songwriter outside of Rodrigo and Nigro is credited in an original capacity (i.e. not as the result of a sample).
Additionally, it is one of only two tracks on the album which has an external producer outside of the aforementioned pair. In other words, it was produced by Nigro alongside an act called Jam City. Jam City is actually just one dude, a UK-based producer/DJ.
The aforenoted Sour of course is Olivia’s debut album, which was officially released on 21 May 2021. And the labels that put it out are Interscope and Geffen.
Concerning the songstress ‘blowing up’ as mentioned in the article, this occurred in January of 2021. It happened just after she released her maiden single, “Drivers License”. The success of that track catapulted Olivia from a virtually unknown Disney actress to becoming one of the hottest names in the music industry, overnight.
In fact it topped the Billboard Hot 100 as soon as it was released, as well as a number of music charts around the world. And Rodrigo herself has explained the whole experience as her “entire life just like shifted in an instant”.
