By Aeriel Revivo '24 and Ellie Miller '24
Disclaimer: This article is based on extensive online research done by the authors. Although most claims made here are well-supported, none of them are proven. Take everything written with a grain of salt, and enjoy!
“I got my driver’s license last week, just like we’d always talked about. Cause you were so excited for me to finally drive up to your house. But today I drove through the suburbs, crying cause you weren’t around.” If you’re anything like us, you’ve become pretty familiar with these few sentences over the past few weeks. Maybe you even read them just now to the tune of “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo, a song about driving, drama, and heartbreak.
Although the song’s message isn’t particularly relatable for much of the NEST+m community, many of us don’t have our driver's licenses, almost none of us live in the suburbs, and no one’s gone through a breakup with heartthrob Joshua Bassett. That hasn’t stopped us from screaming and crying the lyrics as though we were right there with Olivia in the passenger’s seat. So why is this song so weirdly relatable, and what’s the alleged story behind it?
Let’s start with why this song feels so relatable and real. There’s of course the obvious: Rodrigo just turned 18, and it’s rare to see such an amazing artist who’s about the same age as you. But there are also scientific reasons we love "drivers license" the way we do. According to Sandi Curtis, a music therapist, "drivers license" feels so good to listen to because it offers us an emotional release. By hearing such a powerful song, we are forced to acknowledge our own powerful emotions, which can feel amazing, especially when we’ve been repressing them. What makes this song even more therapeutic is that you can tell Rodrigo means every word she sings. That’s because she’s an amazing artist but also because she wrote this song about real heartbreak.
Here’s where things get messy. Rodrigo starred in the 2019 High School Musical the Musical the Series (a mouthful, we know) opposite Joshua Bassett, a 20-year-old actor/musician. After some pretty romantic scenes on camera (and some romantic sightings off), the two were rumored to be dating. However, Rodrigo was a minor, while Bassett was not. This resulted in some tension between the couple, and they split after Bassett decided that it was too much to wait for Rodrigo to turn 18 before making their relationship official. Rodrigo was heartbroken, wrote "drivers license" and went on to have it break several records. End of story. Or was it?
About a month later, Bassett released his song called "Lie Lie Lie," which included lyrics such as “So they told me all the things that you said, running all over my name, oh” and “So you’re telling them it’s all my fault, you’re the victim this time.” These lyrics clearly allude to the breakup, more specifically "drivers license." (Which, more so than "Lie Lie Lie" paints Rodrigo as more of the victim in this breakup.) Surely that must be the last piece of the puzzle. Nope. As any Y/A romance reader or Sabrina Carpenter fan will tell you, a love triangle has three sides. Three sides, three stories. Three sides, three songs.
That takes us to the final song in this whole ordeal: Sabrina Carpenter’s “Skin.” Wait, what does 21-year-old former Disney Channel star of the hit show Girl Meets World Sabrina Carpenter have to do with anything? Well, apparently, she has to do with everything. In "drivers license," Rodrigo achingly sings about a girl who is “so much older” than her, someone who’s blonde, and caused Rodrigo to doubt her relationship. Carpenter fits that bill perfectly, being 3 years Rodrigo’s senior and having long blonde locks. In her song Skin, which came out in late January 2021, Carpenter sings, “Maybe you didn’t mean it, maybe ‘blonde’ was the only rhyme” and “You can try, to get under my, under my, under my skin, while he’s on mine, yeah, all on my, all on my, all on my skin.” The “he” here, of course, is Joshua Bassett, and the blonde lyric seems to be a direct reference to "drivers license."
That concludes our love triangle, but there’s more to the story. The internet has been blowing up with rumors flying like crazy. The most prominent and least far-fetched rumor is that this whole thing is just a publicity stunt, aimed to advertise High School Musical the Musical the Series. (Season two to the series is due to be released in May.) After all, this wouldn’t be the first time Disney exploited young talents and their love lives for publicity. (Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas, anyone?) Regardless of whether or not this whole thing is just a stunt, it’s still a ton of fun to speculate! Just don’t drive yourself crazy looking through BuzzFeed articles about the drama. Or, at least, trust Olivia Rodrigo, who knows a thing or two about driving.
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