Former Disney star Olivia Rodrigo reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 after her debut single, “Driver’s License”, turned into a heartbreaking anthem on TikTok and caught Taylor Swift’s attention.
Rodrigo, 17, inspired numerous videos on the app with his first release, with users singing along, making parodies and even creating their own derivatives of “Driver’s License”. The song amassed 76.1 million streams and sold 38,000 downloads in the week after its January 8 release, according to Billboard.
Spotify said that three days after its release, “Driver’s License” reached the most streams in one day for a song outside the holiday. He broke his own record the next day.
In a TikTok announcing the release of the song, Rodrigo told followers that she was inspired to write the song after obtaining her license six months ago. She said she was excited to “drive alone through the suburbs crying”.
The song tells the story of a young woman who finally gets her driver’s license and drives crying, remembering a lost love. Rodrigo’s lyrics explore her insecurities and the way she is still chased by her old love.
“And I know we weren’t perfect, but I never felt that way about anyone,” sings Rodrigo. “I just can’t imagine how good you can be now that I’m gone.”
TikTok users were delighted with the supposed “Driver’s License” background story, creating dozens of videos discussing what they believe to be the inspiration for the song. According to the theory of TikTok, Rodrigo wrote the song about his old “High School Musical: The Musical – The Series co-star”, Joshua Bassett.
Users made videos speculating that Rodrigo allegedly fell in love with Bassett, who was 18 when she was 15, but that they couldn’t be together because of her age. Bassett taught her to drive and said he would wait until she got older, but then ended up moving to a new girl, the videos theorized.
Social media detectives up an old video came up where Rodrigo said Bassett took her for a walk after discovering that a song they co-wrote, “Just For a Moment”, would be included in the Disney series.
Neither Bassett nor Rodrigo publicly commented on fan theories about music.
But music fans came together around the almost universal pain of teenagers’ heartbreak as they shared videos of them singing, dancing and explaining the music to others in their lives.
“I mean, the whole song makes you feel like you’ve had the worst headache of your life,” said one user in her video, which includes an explicit lyrics.
And “Driver’s License” even caught the eye of pop superstar Taylor Swift, who also rose to fame as a teenager with her own heartbreaking hymns. Rodrigo posted a screenshot of his music hitting the iTunes chart on Swift, with the caption of the Instagram photo “next to Taylor on the us i tunes chart I’m in a puddle of tears”.
“I say this is my baby and I am very proud,” commented Swift.
Rodrigo told Billboard in an interview that this was the “strangest week of my life” after the transformation of music into an internet phenomenon.
“Seeing everything go really well – having this really painful moment in my life and turning it into something beautiful that maybe can help people in a difficult time that they are going through, as if I were going through a difficult time – is so empowering” , said Rodrigo. ” And I am grateful for doing that. “
