Olivia Rodrigo has returned with a new single different from everything we had heard in ‘you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love’ and in her career, in general. Above all, in the thematic section. ‘Serena Joy’ arrives a week before the inaugural edition of the Daisy Chain Fields festival, created by the artist and aimed at raising funds for organizations that defend the rights of women and girls.
‘Serena Joy’ is the most combative song in Olivia Rodrigo’s discography. This borrows the name of a character from ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, a novel and series in which women’s reproductive rights are restricted in favor of an extremely religious government. In the work, Serena Joy aims to return women to their traditional position of submission, which Rodrigo captures directly in the lyrics of the song.
“Yes, it’s all for the cause, for the good of all,” he sings in the first lines of the song. Dan Nigro pulls a drum machine and a New Order-esque bassline into the production as Olivia sings from the perspective of the oppressors in the first verse (“Sing, sing / What they tell you to sing”) and from the point of view of the resistance in the second (“If you can’t punch a punch / You can learn to spit”).
She herself said in an interview with ETalk that ‘Serena Joy’ did not make it into the album because of its conceptual element, since the LP was the chronicle of an entire relationship. And although there are elements of his production that we did see in ‘you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love’, his lyrics are something totally new for Rodrigo. Proceeds from the issue will also go to organizations such as Planned Parenthood or the Center For Reproductive Rights.
