The first single, "Vampire," off Olivia Rodrigo's second album is officially out — and it's a rich text. So let's break it down like we're in high school English class.
View this video on YouTube
Right off the bat, the video opens onto a scene of a moonlit lake at night:
Then we have the opening meadow sequence, which, unsurprisingly, appears to be a reference to the vampire flick Twilight. In fact, there's even a photo shoot of Bella and Edward in a meadow where the former is wearing a veeeery similar dress to Olivia's.
Olivia is then revealed to be on a stage that falls apart, drawing blood. One fan theorized that the light hitting her and giving her a "vampire bite" speaks to the underlying message of the song, which is how the music industry bled her dry.
The camera pans out to show that Olivia is performing at the ambiguous 19th Annual Awards. Given that Olivia was 19 when she wrote the song, some have speculated that the scene mimics how Olivia is required to perform even while things fall apart around her.
Before we get into the lyrics, let's look at what Olivia has said about writing the song. "I wrote this song on the piano, super chill, in December of last year," she told Zane Lowe in a new interview. "We wanted to do a song which crescendoed the entire time and reflects pent-up anger that you have."
Some lyrics speak to a relationship with an older man whom Olivia dubs a "bloodsucker" and "fame fucker": "I used to think I was smart / But you made me look so naive" and "Went for me and not her / 'Cause girls your age know better."
That's not even getting into the fact that the song is called "Vampire" and, you know, vampires are old. A specific relationship is further evoked with the line, "Six months of torture you sold as some forbidden paradise."
Some have suggested that the song is about Olivia's ex, producer Adam Faze, as the release of the song marks two years to the day since the couple had their first public outing — when Olivia was 18 and Adam was 24. Her next relationship was with music executive Zack Bia, who reportedly dated her when he was 26 and she was 19. The two apparently split in August of last year.
