Olivia Rodrigo - The Cure
00:00 You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. This episode contains explicit language. Olivia Rodriguez is a Grammy-winning singer and songwriter. In June, 26, she released her third album. You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love. The day it came out, it broke streaming records on Spotify and Amazon Music, and it debuted at number one on the Billboard charts. I talked to Olivia here in my studio, and I also visited her longtime producer and co-writer Dan Nigro at his studio.
00:38 Dan Nigro won the Grammy for producer of the year in 2025, in part for his work with Olivia Rodriguez. And for this episode, the two of them told me the story of making Olivia's song The Cure, from the original voice memo to the final version. But my head is full of a breast dream. You tried hard to suck a love. My name's Olivia Rodriguez. And my name is Dan Nogro. We started working together, I think I must have been 16 or 17, which is crazy, because I'm 23 now. So he's known me my entire adult life and, you know, lots of my teenage life. We've collaborated on every song that I've ever put out.
01:51 Were there any kind of big picture concepts or intentions that you had before you started writing? I set out to write this. album and I knew that I wanted to make it about romantic love and more of a positive sense. I think my last two records were heartbroken and angsty and all the feelings that you feel when you're a teenager. And I just sort of wanted to stretch a muscle and try to write love songs. And that's a hard thing to do as a songwriter, I think, oftentimes writing a song about happy and a relationship you are just come across as like braggie or weird or vapid. And so I kind of wanted to challenge myself to figure out what a love song meant to me and what it sounded like coming out of my mouth.
02:30 And so we knew we wanted to do that, and I knew that I wanted to kind of twist it a little bit, because I knew all of my favorite love songs were really sad, you know, like love song by The Cure, First Day of My Life by Bright Eyes or video games by Lana Del Rey. These are all songs that are about quote-unquote being happy in love, but they're kind of devastating, and that's what makes them stick with you and what pulls on your heartstrings so much. I think when you're in a relationship, like a mature sort of relationship, it's like so multifaceted and layered and, you know, not every day is like, Oh, Sunshine and Roses. I'm the happiest person in the world. It's like complex. And I don't know, I think that's a fun challenge as an artist to try to capture that complexity.
03:08 Where do you think the story of writing this song first starts? I actually remember vividly being in my friend's sheep. And I was sitting in the passenger seat and I was talking to him and I was just like, you know, I'm making this record. And I'm in love and I love this person. And I'm just like so miserable. So much of the time. time. I'm like very unhappy. And I was like, I don't know why I can't like, I just want to write love songs. And I remember him expressly telling me, he's like, you have to write about how you're actually feeling. You can't pretend to write a certain way. You can't write in the way that you think you're supposed to feel. Like you have to be honest with yourself. And that's what's great about music. And like, you just have to tap into that. It's a gift. And I was like, okay, like, sure. Could you tell me more about those simultaneous feelings of knowing that, oh, I'm in love with this person, but also I'm so unhappy?
04:05 Was it because of being in love that you were unhappy? Like, I'm so in love I'm miserable? Or were these just two separate rivers running in parallel? I don't know. I mean, I think falling in love can really, like, hold a mirror to you and show you parts of yourself that maybe before we're kind of dormant. And sometimes you're in love and it's not happy. because there's something that's not working, and then that's why you're so sad. And so I remember kind of feeling emboldened after that conversation,
04:32 and I think a few days later I wrote the initial sort of first draft. I'm not great at guitar. I'm like still sort of in a permanent state of learning. But I was trying to play a chord and I played it wrong. I like messed up where my fingers were, but it actually just sounded cool. And I was like, oh, that's great. A wonderful thing about being a novice is something you make a happy accident. So I started playing a chord progression that I liked.
05:03 I was just sitting on my couch. It was late at night, and I was deep in album mode. And when I'm writing, I try to force myself to write a song every day, even if I don't really feel like it. And I think this was actually one of those times where I didn't feel like it. I wrote a chorus that's kind of bad, so I won't share it. Really? You don't want to share the bad course? No, it's like, it got a lot better, so I can't show you because then people are going to
05:54 I don't know. It'll haunt me, but... Can you describe the bad chorus? I think the lyrics were, I'm unraveling and you can't stitch me up. I thought I'd feel better when I finally fell in love. We scrapped that chorus, but kept the unraveled part. So that's a thing. Like, people always ask me if I have any advice for people who are kind of just starting out writing songs. And I always say, like, just don't be afraid to write the bad songs or, like, the bad choruses or whatever,
06:18 because there's always, like, a little nugget that you take and make it into something good. And so I think you just really can't be precious with that. that I am so not a perfectionist when it comes to music and writing. I just write and write and write. And I think that that's obviously the most joyful way to be, but also just the most productive. The next day after I wrote this, I brought it to Dan. And I was like, I think that there's something here. And he was like, oh, yeah, there definitely is something here.
06:40 She was really excited about it. And I was like, this is cool and it's dark. And it's not something that I've heard you talk about before. And so we spent the day sort of figuring out the chorus and the bridge. I was kind of following her lead. I could tell that she knew what she wanted to say. I remember driving to the studio and being on the freeway on ramp and being like, oh, the song's called The Cure. Like, that's the most distilled way to say this.
07:07 Like, it'll never be the cure. I remember coming up with that on the way to the studio and then bringing it down. I was like, this is my verse and it's going to be called The Cure. We found the chords to the chorus. And then she started kind of riffing on some stuff. I actually have the voice mom. I'll play it. It's so funny. It's changed so much since then, but I just remember feeling like we were in a really good flow state and we were really getting somewhere with the song.
08:13 With The Cure, we recorded it so fast because I just remember feeling like we were in a really good flow state and we were really getting somewhere with the song. fast because I just wanted to quickly get the idea down. We made this whole record in Dan's tiny little studio that's so small, and it was really annoying because the air conditioner didn't work like half the time we were making the record. It was like summer and hot. But I love that little studio. We've made so many songs in there, and it just feels so homey. I struggle, like, trying to write a good song in a studio that's really grand and beautiful.
08:40 I don't know. There's just something nice about feeling like you're just in a garage hanging out. I was sitting in my chair. She was sitting on the couch, and these two microphones that are up on my piano were there. And instead of, like, micing the guitar properly, I literally just stood on the piano bench and played the guitar into the two piano mics. And it was like a really, like, rough take. And then she recorded her vocals to my guitar.
09:07 All the pretty girls in the foreground of my mind. I thought I'd done enough, but they keep. The first lyric is all the pretty girls in the foreground of my mind. I thought I'd done enough, but they keep moving the line. I think it's a lyric that really hits home for me. I think women in general, and especially women in this industry, it just constantly feels like the goalposts for us are just always changing and nothing's enough.
09:35 And it's this insatiable beast of achievement or beauty or whatever. And just in life, I think people benefit so much off of women feeling like they're not enough. they need to be doing more. And it's just so exhausting. She recorded the vocal and I was like, what would it sound like with a double vocal? She did it. And we were like, oh, that's cool.
10:07 That sounds interesting. All of her other records, the vocal is like so intimately singular. Yeah, it just makes it feel intense and introspective. And there's no auto tune and there's no like melodyining or anything. Like they're just her vocal tracks. they kind of rub a little bit in spaces that makes it feel unsettling. And I feel like as much as like we have all the modern tools that we can like make a vocal feel perfect, it felt imperfectly perfect.
10:36 All the nights spend fighting bad thoughts in my room. Feeling so alone might as well be on the moon. So I wanted to make sure we like holistically kept it as raw as possible. I don't want to change the thing. But we recorded it so quickly the day that we recorded it that I never tuned my guitar. And so my guitar is actually like about 15 to 20 cents sharp. And so I ended up having to tune every other instrument
11:10 to the guitar and the vocal because I didn't want to mess with it. When I played the piano, because the piano was actually in tune, I had to mel it on the piano to be in tune with the guitar. I think the next thing I added to the song was the Juno bass. I wanted it to feel really intense. And I like the juxtaposition of something so organic against a synth. My head is full of poison and my heart is full of doubt. I got toxins in my bloodstream.
11:52 You tried hard to suck them out. And it feels like medication. And it's good for me, I'm sure, but it don't matter how your love feels anymore. It'll never be the cure. It'll never be the cure. My head is full of poison, and my heart is full of doubt. I've got toxins in my bloodstream. You tried hard to suck them out.
12:27 And it feels like medication, it's good for me, I'm sure, but it don't matter how your love feels anymore. It'll never be the cure. So, Evo. I mean, it's brutal. It's brutal. The song is addressed to someone, and the idea of saying that to someone, this is cool and all, but it's not enough to actually make me happy. Was the version of that conversation something you had actually already had in real life?
12:52 Or was this you figuring out that feeling? I think it was me figuring out that feeling. And I honestly think it could be applicable to a lot of things. I think it could be applicable to your career or like having this friend or this house or whatever. Like, I don't know. I think that there's been something that I've been learning in my adult life, like all these things that I thought like, oh, once I like hit this milestone, then I'll feel okay. I'll feel calm and I'll feel good about myself. And I think getting older is realizing that like no outside forces could ever make you feel totally happy and content.
13:24 It's like totally an inside job. And it sounds kind of cliche, but it was like a really hard thing to learn. And I think life kind of teaches you that over and over if you don't really internalize it. I think I went into my first adult relationship sort of thinking like, oh, this is going to be a thing. I'm going to feel happy and feel great about myself. But I actually think like being in a relationship just really complicates all of the issues that you have with yourself. I think it brings them to the surface and sort of makes it a lot harder. And I think that that's why it's so important for people to like be in relationships.
13:52 You know, it's just like the best therapy anyone could ever go through. You just know yourself so much and you figure out what you want and like where the cracks in your foundation are, you know? and yeah. More with Olivia Rodrigo after this. The song is very tense. And the production is very tense. I build up the guitar really, really intensely going into verse two. I think everyone thinks when they hear it for the first time
14:29 that the drums are about to come in, but they don't. I used to play a game in my head when I date a guy. Tally up the girls that he fought till I start to cry. I love that lyric. It's a really harsh sort of a visceral line to say, and I think that's why I like it so much. I remember I was trying to write a, like a wordy second verse, but couldn't come up with it.
14:56 And at a certain point I was just like, what if it's just baby I'm unraveled, like over and over again? Sometimes less is more. I was sort of obsessed with the concept of unraveling, and I loved the visual image that it conjured up. I love the feeling of the word. Also, I just kind of had this image of falling in love and feeling like all of the artifices and all of these fronts that you put up kind of just had to fall down. And that felt like an unraveling to me. And all of these like really deep raw parts of yourself being brought up
15:35 in the unraveling was sort of one of the themes of the album. So yeah, it means so much to me. And yeah, I just love how it kind of grows and builds and builds until it kind of like reaches ahead. And I'm just kind of like screaming, I'm unraveled at the very end. I remember Dan being like, hit that note that I'm unwrapped that. I'm unbred that. And being like, I don't know. Like, this is a lot. I don't know if I can do that.
16:14 Like, this is crazy. And he's like, just trust me. And it's like, turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the song. We have an amazing friend, Paul Cartwright, who does all of the strings on all of my albums, actually. And a lot of the string parts I recorded in MIDI first. Like the chugging cellos are all like MIDI. For some reason on this song, I really liked the way that the MIDI strings sounded. So I just kept them and then Paul played along to the MIDI strings.
17:08 I remember him sending me a demo of it with strings. It really felt so beautiful and dark. I think strings just sound like being in love. But I remember for some reason we like, I remember listening to it and was like, I think I was in like a really bad mood. I think I wasn't ready to like hear the subject matter of this song. It's very honest and raw. It's like kind of hard to admit to yourself that this is how you're feeling. And he sent me a demo and he's like, this is great, isn't it? And I was like, yeah, it's okay. I don't really want to listen to it right now. Like it was almost like too much for
17:48 me to metabolize or something like that. And so Dan always makes fun of me for not liking the first draft. So you're kind of on the edge of your seat for a while until the drums come in and that was done very intentionally. Why can't you come stinks me up? Why can't it ever? When you abstain from using the drums for so long that when they come in, it feels so important
18:16 and it really hits you. The drums are played by Sterling Laws, who's this incredible drummer. The fills that he plays, I feel really emotional. I feel them in my chest when he plays them. One of the reasons why I love this song so much and why I love the production so much
18:47 is it kind of feels like you really have to earn that payoff. You know what I mean? It doesn't give it to you right at the first chorus. You kind of have to keep listening. It keeps you hopefully sort of engaged until the drums come in and the strings come in and it feels like this soaring huge payoff. I think that the song is a little bit of a question. I think it's not like, oh, well, I figured out the meaning of love and life and here it is.
19:40 It's like, oh, why can't this ever be enough? Which is the lyric. It's just genuinely asking, you know what I mean? And I think that it's a concept that I didn't have the like emotional intelligence maybe to understand when I was 19. Like, fair enough. But I think it took a lot of like growing and self-discovery and struggle, I think, to like make this song and come to the realizations that I came to while writing it. I think it's one of the most introspective songs I've ever written. Yeah, it means so much to me.
20:26 And now here's The Cure by Olivia Rodrigo in its entirety. To learn more, visit Song Exploder.com. You'll find links to buy or stream The Cure, and you can watch the music video. This episode was produced by me, Craig Ely, Mary Dolan, Kathleen Smith, and Tiger Biscop. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows and support them yourself at Radiotopia.fm.
25:59 And if you'd like to hear more from me, you can subscribe to my newsletter, which you can also find on the Song Exploder website. You can also get a Song Exploder shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi Keish Heerway. Thanks for listening. There's a new podcast from Radiotopia called Lightbox. In the show, composer and host Mark Henry Phillips investigates how AI is affecting the music industry
26:37 and the people who make it. The episodes feature interviews with the CEO's Building AI Music Generation Tools and the Grammy-winning producers who are secretly using them and the legendary musicians that are trying to stop them. Lightbox is a story about music, but also about what we lose when machines start doing the things that we thought made us human.
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