drivers license — Olivia Rodrigo (2021)

Why it's in this book

This song comes in May, when the four-chord loop is already in your hands. In class the verse uses three chords: C, A minor and F. The chorus uses the four chords of the loop: F, C, G and A minor. They are the same chords as Love Story, Anti-Hero and Perfect, just in a different order. The record has more chords than fit in Year 7, especially in the chorus, so we play this reduced version. What you learn here is how to sing solo: it is the soloist's song for May, and it teaches you to go from very soft to very loud. In the room with no instruments you work on the melody a cappella and the staggered entries in the bridge; in the ukulele room, the chords; in the music room, the keyboard starts alone and the drums come in at the chorus.

Why this song

The song does not start with music. It starts with a car: the engine turns over and you hear the beep that warns you a door is open. Then the piano comes in.

That car belongs to Olivia Rodrigo's mum. The song is about what happens when you finally get your driving licence and the person you wanted to drive around with is gone.

The question on this page is: how does a song grow if it hardly changes chords? Here the answer is volume.

Historical context

Olivia Rodrigo is an American singer and actor. Before this song, people knew her from a Disney+ series, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. She was 17 when she released "drivers license".

It was her first single. It came out on 8 January 2021, in the middle of the pandemic. She wrote it with Dan Nigro, who also produced it. She has said that her favourite thing is sitting at the piano in her bedroom and writing sad songs. This one came from exactly there: a break-up song written at the piano.

Foto: Dillan Payne, CC BY-SA 2.0, vía Wikimedia Commons

A year after the song, Rodrigo was already filling venues like this one, Massey Hall in Toronto (Canada). The photo is from April 2022, with the audience already in their seats.

What happened next took everyone by surprise. On its fourth day, the song was played more than 15 million times on Spotify in a single day, a record for a song that was not a Christmas song. In the United States it went straight in at number 1 and stayed there for eight weeks. The following year it won a Grammy.

Musical characteristics

Almost a whisper. At the start there is only piano and voice. Rodrigo sings quietly, as if talking to herself. In music, playing or singing very softly is called piano (written p). Yes, it is the same word as the instrument.

Three chords you already know. The verse moves around three chords. In the class version they are C, A minor and F. They are three of the four chords of the most common loop in pop. Because the tenser chords are missing, the verse sounds still, as if it were waiting for something.

Growing without changing. Listen to how the song builds little by little. Voices, claps and more instruments join in. She sings louder and louder. Getting gradually louder is called a crescendo. All the changes of volume in a song are called its dynamics.

The bridge. Near the end comes a different part, which is neither verse nor chorus. It is the bridge. Here Rodrigo's voice is recorded several times, one on top of another, and she is almost shouting. It is the loudest moment of the song: what musicians call forte (f). Billboard magazine chose it as the third best bridge of the 21st century.

A warning for when you play. The record is in B♭ major, an awkward key for the ukulele. In class we play it in C major, one tone higher. Moving a whole song to a different pitch is called transposing. The melody stays the same; only how high or low it sounds changes.

Hard facts: B♭ major on the record and C major in class, 4/4, 72 beats per minute (the beat you feel; counted double, 144), 4:02. The form: intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge and final chorus.

Guided listening

Play the music video and stay quiet at the start. Listen to the engine and the car's beep. Notice how the beep turns into a piano note.

In the first verse, count how many instruments you can hear. Almost only one: the piano.

When the first chorus arrives, compare its volume with the verse. Is she singing louder? Has something been added?

In the bridge, listen for how many Rodrigo voices are singing at once. It is the loudest part of the song.

After the bridge, listen to the ending. Compare it with the beginning: does the song end loud, or does it drop back down?

Trivia and curiosities

• Nobody that young had reached number 1 in the United States since Billie Eilish with "Bad Guy", another song in this book. And nobody younger than Rodrigo had ever gone straight in at number 1.

• The noise at the start is not a sound effect from a library: it is her mum's car. The song starts telling the story before a single word is sung.

• The title is all lower case, "drivers license". It is a style choice, like typing a text message.

• Critics compared her to Taylor Swift, for the way she tells a story, and to Lorde, for the way it sounds. Taylor Swift is in this book too, with Love Story and Anti-Hero.

Classroom activities

• From piano to forte. Sing the verse very softly, almost whispering, and the chorus loudly. Then the other way round. Which one sounds like the real song? Write p and f on the board in the right places.

• Play the chords. Ukulele: verse with C, A minor and F; chorus with F, C, G and A minor. One downstroke per beat, no rush: it is slow.

• The staggered bridge. Split the class into three groups. In the bridge, the first group starts alone; the second comes in a few bars later; then the third. Listen to the volume grow without anyone shouting.

• The soloist. One person sings the verse alone, with the keyboard. The band comes in at the chorus, with the drums. What changes when the drums come in?

• Create. Think of a real-life sound that could start a song, like the car in this one. Record it on a phone and play the three verse chords over it.

Key vocabulary

• Piano (p) — piano: tocar o cantar muy suave
• Crescendo — crescendo: subir el volumen poco a poco
• Dynamics — dinámica
• Bridge — puente
• Transposing — transportar: pasar la canción entera a otra altura

Resources

Official music video — Rodrigo drives around her neighbourhood at night, with her brand-new licence.

Ukulele tutorial — Abby Lyons. An easy version, with chords and strumming.

Guitar tutorial — Easy 2 Play Music. Chords and lyrics on screen.

Keyboard tutorial — PHianonize. An easy version, with the keys lit up.