Switched on Pop - Olivia Rodrigo and the second verse massacre

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

Olivia Rodrigo's chart-topping new single "drop dead," the lead single from her forthcoming third album you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, breaks one of pop's oldest rules by abandoning the traditional second verse and replacing it with something entirely new. From Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" to Sabrina Carpenter's "Manchild" and Chappell Roan's "Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl," a growing wave of today's biggest pop stars are ditching the verse-chorus formula listeners have been trained to expect for decades. Rodrigo didn't invent the second-verse switch-up, but on "drop dead" she may have just killed off the predictable second verse for good. Songs Discussed Frank Zappa "Charlene" Olivia Rodrigo "drop dead" The Cure "Just Like Heaven" Jean-Baptiste Lully "The Tragey of Armide" Ryan Brown conducting Opera Lafayette Olivia Rodrigo "drivers license" Olivia Rodrigo "good 4 u" Olivia Rodrigo "vampire" Olivia Rodrigo "ballad of a homeschooled girl" Arnold Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire — Patricia Kopatchinskaja Mariah Carey "Fantasy" (ft. Ol' Dirty Bastard) Blackstreet "No Diggity" (ft. Dr. Dre, Queen Pen) Peter Gabriel "Don't Give Up" (ft. Kate Bush) Kendrick Lamar, SZA "luther" Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars "Die With a Smile" Post Malone, Swae Lee "Sunflower" HUNTR/X "Golden" Joshua Bassett, Olivia Rodrigo "Start of Something New" Matt Cornett, Olivia Rodrigo "What I've Been Looking For" Olivia Rodrigo "All I Want" The Avett Brothers "I and Love and You" Sheryl Crow "Strong Enough" Sabrina Carpenter "Please Please Please" Sabrina Carpenter "Manchild" Chappell Roan "Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl" Chappell Roan "HOT TO GO!" Chappell Roan "Red Wine Supernova" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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All vets are in network. Go to fetchpet.com slash save right now for your free quote. That's fetchpet.com slash save. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need.

It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, economy. and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-Fer-Free at O-D-O-D-O-O-O-D-com. Question. What is the most embarrassing thing that you did when you had a crush? singing the Frank Zappa song, Charlina, outside a bat mitzvah in seventh grade into the New York City night because of how forlorn I was. That's one of the many embarrassing moments. Do you feel that it was cathartic or that you wanted to die inside?

More die inside. Perfect. No, no, it was slightly cathartic. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And for the record, Charlene Beck's up. It remains a great track.

I've got another great track for you, Nate. Olivia Rodriguez has given us Drop Dead for a forthcoming third album. You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love. It debuted at Coachella. It made its chart debut at number one. and it might just pretend the future of music. So I take it that you've had the experience of overwhelming butterflies in your stomach from someone that you so admire that you feel like you might just drop dead. Oh, yeah.

I mean, that's one of the most powerful emotions powering pop lyrics for, I don't know, millennia, right? I mean, I think it's probably motivating and powering most of society. It's all the ridiculous stuff we do when we're in love. We're just running on liquid natural gas and crushes. Okay, so that's what this song is about. It's a crush so powerful that it makes you feel so sick to your stomach that you might drop dead and die. Let's hear how Olivia builds out this song. The song starts off with this baseline that has this stuttering delay.

It's very unusual to put a delay on a bass because it will muddy up the entire sound. You'll lose all kinds of definition. A delay is the effect of a note repeating multiple times. Yes, exactly. Behind it is this sort of oozy, granular pad effect. Everything feels very lofty, stretched out. It reminds me almost of kind of like, A soundtrack.

Bear with me, if you will. I'll bear with you. Chariots of Fire. Whoa. Vangelist reference incoming. Oh, yeah. The theme of the film, The Chariates of Fire,

about Olympic athletes. I think there's nothing more Olympian than working up the courage to ask somebody out. And I feel like the song has that same sort of like slow, stretched out quality, this feeling like we're going to build somewhere. And she even reflects that

in the first lines of the, verse. She sings, I know that the bar closes at 11. It's like the never finish that beer. She sings, I know that the bar closes at 11. I hope that you never finish that beer. It's like the clock is ticking and I want this moment to last forever. And then she has this fabulous reference to the cures just like heaven. You know all the to Just Like Heaven, and I know why he wrote them now that you're standing right here. Just Like Heaven by The Cure is another song about that feeling of uncomfortable love that is so grand that you have to express it through songs. Robert Smith of The Cure is spinning on that dizzy edge of life, having to grab onto love, just as Olivia is having butterflies, making

you're sick to her stomach that love is so strong, just like heaven, also features a delay line on the guitar, not on the bass. Whoa. So she's doing a lot right here from the introduction. We've got a little chariots of fire. We've got a little bit of just like heaven. Big scene setting. Yeah.

It is like a movie. My God, you see all the details so vividly. This is like, I think, one of the strengths of Olivia Rodriguez as a songwriter going back to driver's license. It's like you have such a clear image in your head from the first line. She paints those images in the chorus. The song builds. It continues to grow.

She starts stalking her lover on the internet, which seems like an awkward thing to do except for everyone does it. Not stock. Let's be very clear. That word is a bit strong. But, you know, Google. Research. Yeah. And then she adopts this sort of like high, low metaphor where she's picturing her in the embrace of

this person pressed up in the bathroom line at this bar, but they look so beautiful that they're like the angels on the walls of their side. There's nothing like that feeling when you're a teenager, you've got a crush. You're hanging with them. The kiss is about to occur and time is slowing down. The angels are descending. The choir is singing. The strings are just going insane. And this chorus, is maybe a little unusual because it builds and builds and builds and builds and builds and builds all the way to that very final moment. Yeah. Kiss me and I might drop dead.

May I opine for a moment? Because I just thought of something. Opine away. You know, Versailles, right? Yeah. Who built Versailles? Louis Coutres? Yes, yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. King. Literal king. The Sun King. And he had a court. musician named Jean-Battice Lully.

He was a notorious dick. And he met a very ignominious end when the giant bejeweled staff he used to conduct the orchestra landed on his foot and he developed gangering and died. But he came up with this rhythm that was associated with King Louis XIV. What was that? Called the French rhythm or the French overture, perhaps. And it sounds, it's a little bit like what we hear in that instrumental chorus of Drop Dead. I mean, it's not quite the same.

It's more like, duh, da, da, da, da, da. And this is more like, duh, da, da, da. So it's not quite the same. But I'm going to put it out there. And, you know, the more classical-minded listeners can tell me if there's any truth to that comparison. I like it. All right, let's move from the 1600s back to the present. We have just had our grand cinematic kiss.

Our heroin is going to drop dead. What will happen next? Let's find out. She's a pretty boy. I'm paranoid. I'm made you all. She's fallen to the ground. She might throw up right punch to the gut because, wow, you're just so gorgeous, this guy.

And then she starts flirting with him. She's like, let's walk. Let's take a slow walk. You know, I'm just chewing gum, be a little flirtatious. She starts talking about all her favorite places in Japan and France. France, of course, Versailles, appropriate. And she starts dropping hints and it's like, whoa, let's make this thing last forever if we could. She's very bold, in fact, in this sort of sung, spoken second verse.

She inquires if they'll be exclusive. Let's go steady. Let's go out. Oh. I love the over-the-top emotion of what it feels like to have a crush. How funny is it to have had the first kiss? And then it's like, oh, my God, I've got butterflies. I'm going to throw up.

I don't know what to do. I'm going to start flirting. Can we go steady? It's like, whoa, you just escalated this thing real fast, which is what we do when we feel nervous when we're in love. There's an almost uncomfortable level of vulnerability. here and and i think part of that is the way she's delivering these lines because it's somewhere in between speech and song and it it feels like someone's you're just like having a conversation

with someone you know at a bar maybe and they're just like telling you about all this all these emotions they're feeling and you're like well i can't believe i'm getting to you know get this unfiltered kind of experience that this person is having. It's intimate. It's real. It's a very relatable feeling. What doesn't happen is the title. She doesn't drop dead.

This is like the best feeling in the world, right? It's a wonderful turnaround from our expectation of, you know, you see the song, Olivia Rodriguez. She writes a lot of heartbreak songs. That's true. Right. A lot of angry songs too, right? A lot of angry songs. Good for you.

Vampire. This sounds, you're right. You see the title and you're like, oh, this is going to be addressed to someone like, I hope you drop dead. Exactly. And it's actually an internal reflection of I'm feeling so in love. I don't even know how to handle it. And, you know, the only thing, Nate, that I think drops dead in this song is the second

verse. The second verse is totally changed. It is not the first verse. Typically, you know, I teach songwriting. It's like, you write a first verse. Yes. Second verse is like, let's do the first verse again. Same melody.

Same rhythm. Maybe one little change up. Make sure it's memorable so that when people get to the second verse, they know how to sing along to it, create some kind of narrative progression. Yeah. Go back to the chorus, right? That's your typical second verse. And instead, she ups the ante.

And I feel like I might throw up. Left took right punch to the gut. You're just so pretty boy. I'm paranoid. I'm made you off. We're out of that moment of that slow. I want this moment to last forever. Those delayed bass lines.

No, no, no. Now we are in, boom. It's happening. My heart is racing. Yeah. Right? everything is picked up and her delivery has to match where the narrative is going. And so our expectations of what the second verse should do, those expectations have died.

She has killed them off. She's done something different. And this is not the only time that she has killed off a second verse. Dun, done, done. This is something that Olivia Rodriguez does all the time. Nate, you noted how Olivia likes to write songs of heartbreak and anger and frustration. and that she's one of these great narrative songwriters. This is something that we have seen in all of her biggest singles,

all of which also have played with what's happening in our second verse. So if we go back to 2021, driver's license off of sour. Verse one, delicate, anticipatory teenage romance about getting a driver's license so we can see each other. I've got my driver's license last week, just like we always talked about, Because you were so excited for me to finally drive up to your house. But we're not driving up to anybody's house because I drove through the suburbs and I saw you with that blonde girl, who's now a giant pop star, wink, wink, wink.

And, you know, things do not work out how she wants. And so when she gets to the second verse, boy, do we have a different kind of feeling then? I'm so excited for you at your driver's license. Okay. Verse two speeds up. We get that pounding four-to-the-floor kick drum. Not nearly as much variation as we're hearing in Drop Dead. But we get these sort of changes in how she delivers each of her lines.

Yes. And all my friends are tired of hearing how much I miss you. Little melodic variation. And then she has this sort of great triplet flow, because they'll never know you the way that I do. You can feel that she's getting angry about this teenage romance that is not meant to be. of course in driver's license it all explodes in the bridge so sad so sad very powerful maybe not as much of a big second first turn but has that same giant build out across the entire song we did a whole episode on the return of the power ballad and how so many of her songs start from this very small place and then you get to the first chorus and it's like building up a little bit but then the next verse is almost a little bit bigger than the first chorus and it gets bigger and bigger into the bridge everything. All the emotion pours out. We hear the same thing. And her single off of her next

album, Guts from 2023, her song, Vampire. Same kind of thing. Verse one, she's gotten a little bit older. This is not teenage romance. This is, uh, I am really angry about a past love. I hate to give the satisfaction asking how you're doing now. How's the castle built off people you pretend to care about just what you want it? Look at you. Cool guy, got it. Creep chords, great delivery. You know, slow, terrifying creep chords with her just being like,

let me tell you how much I hate you. It's kind of the delivery. Verse two, it's going to take a big turn. And every girl I ever talked to told me you were bad, bad news. You called them crazy. God, I hate the way I called them crazy to. You're so convincing. We get the kick drum.

A deal lie without flinching. Wow. Wow. At first, you're like, okay, sounds familiar. Yeah. Except the piano's now going twice as fast. We got that four to the floor kick drum and familiar melody at first. And then she just sort of goes off into the upper register of her vocal.

And all of that seething resentment gets expressed in saying like, how dare you? You terrible vampire. Mm. Hmm. Paralyzing. Paralyzing. Fructed up little thrill. Can't figure out just how you do it.

And God knows I'm not broke. She's speeding up, she's extending her phrase length. The whole song builds with that same power ballad form. If these two songs are not evidence enough, let me give you one more Olivia Rodriguez joint that really changes up that second half. Let's go to Ballad of a Homestchool Girl. I've got my tongue.

Now, I don't think I get along with anyone that's the greatest inside joke. I mean, the angst just oozes through the speakers on this one. It's such a perfect encapsulation of like this side of her artistry, just teenage on wee. And in particular, that feeling of like, I don't know the social codes and I'm going to say the wrong thing. Oh, what a terrible feeling. Well, it gets worse in the second verse. Elaps the wrong time sat with the wrong guy.

I searched on how to start a conversation on a website talk. I swore was his type. that he was making out with boys in the home. Everything to do is tragic. Every guy like he's gay. The morning after I care. Wow. So this might be the precursor.

Yeah. This is it. This is it. We have that same sort of spoken, sung second verse that helps the ante. Here's the deal. She's not the first to do it. This second verse switch up. It's happened before.

And I think it's going to happen again. Support for the show. show comes from Fetch Pet Insurance. Do you have a pet? Every six seconds, a pet owner in the U.S. gets hit with a vet bill of over $1,000. And it's almost always an unwelcome surprise. That's where Fetch Pet Insurance comes in.

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Spoken voice. You know, Arnold Scherberg, Piro Lanier. I assume that was what you were going to say. I was thinking about Mariah Carey and old dirty bastard. Oh, yeah, that's my second. Okay, so let me go out of this trait. You are positing that. the hip-hop R&B collaborations of particularly the 1990s and early 2000s,

such as Mariah and Harry and Old Dirty Bastard, in which she sings an initial verse, and then Old Dirty Bastard raps, a later verse, are effectively the prototype for what we're hearing on Olivia Rodriguez's Drop Dead. That's exactly right. Fantasy featuring ODB was one of the first, rap features on a pop song.

The rap feature is the place that we start to hear this sort of different first and second verse. We hear a similar kind of thing on Black Streets, No Diggety, where Dr. Dre takes the first verse. It's going down, fade to Black Street. The homies got at me, collab creations. Bump like acin ain't no doubt. I put it down, never slouch.

As long as my credit can vouch, a dog couldn't catch me. So this is doing it backwards. We get the rap verse first. We get Teddy Riley on the second. verse giving us a little bit of that sweet vocal. So, so good. Okay, I'm pretty persuaded by the power. Hip-hop is such a powerful

very low tea on the profile. So, so good. Okay, I'm pretty persuaded by the lineage you're presenting here. Hip-hop is such a powerful force in defining pop trends generally. And yet I also suspect there must be some antecedents for this within the more specific corpus of like bubblegum pop music. I mean, I think the other path that we could take is to look at duets.

So if we want to go back into the 80s, we could go to Peter Gabriel's Don't Give Up, featuring Kate Bush. Huh. In this broadland, we grew up strong. We were wanted all along. So this song from 1985, taught to win, I never thought I could. So this song from 1986 has Peter Gabriel singing the verses. Kate Bush sings the chorus. Don't give you so hot. Don't we don't need you of anything.

But she also gets her own verse after the second chorus. Rest your head. You worry too much. going to be all right. Okay, so when we get to the second verse in Kate Bush's singing, it's, I mean, it's a very different melody from what Peter Gabriel's saying at first. It's like, I guess, reflective of these two singers having their own kind of narratives and perspectives. So it makes sense. Yeah, so this is actually labeled as a bridge on a lot of lyric sites. It feels to me kind of like

its own, yeah, it's other section. It would be. a third verse or a bridge. It is where she gets to have a little bit of the narrative. And to your point, I think the purpose of this in a duet is so that each person can have their own perspective. And it's something that we hear in a lot of contemporary duets. Like,

if we went to Kendrick Lamar and Sizz's Luther. Hey, Roman rule 7, babe, drop it like it's hot. If this world was mine, I take your dreams and make him most apply. If this world was mine, I take your hand of me's in front of God. Introduce him to that like.

So that's Kendrick's verse, verse one. And then when Sizzle comes in, totally different vibe. So in this interpretation of the classic duet done by Luther Vandross and Charlene, previously Marvin Gay and Tammy Terrell, as the romance increases, as does the delivery, the vocal increases its speed, we get this beautiful melody from Siza. Second verse, different, makes sense, change of perspective, change in this romantic relationship.

And lots of other songs. do the same thing. I think it was the biggest song of Lady Gaga's career. I'm not joking. Die with a smile. Yeah. So her duet partner, Bruno Mars, gets the first verse. And when Gaga comes in in the second verse, once again, all of the feelings, all of the feelings of love are going to to amplify, as does the delivery, and she comes in with this just over the top, Melisma. Okay, not a huge change-up, but definitely a meaningful variation. She re-harmonizes it when Bruno comes in. The feeling of this verse is dramatically different than the verse before it.

Yeah, I would say so. You got to put your own flare on it. You know, there's so many that do it, Sunflower by Post Malone and Sway Lee, two totally different verses. This is a thing in pop music duets. I think the other place that we could look to beyond rap features in duets

would be the world of the musical, which so frequently have different second verses from their first verse. If Die With a Smile wasn't the most important song to happen last year, I think Golden probably was. I was a ghost. I was alone. Verse one of Huntricks off of K-pop Demon Hunters,

totally different than verse two. We've talked about it before. And it's really appropriate here because there's so many K-pop songs where the second verse is a rap feature or the second verse all of a sudden goes into a regga-ton beat is a totally different thing. And so it's really fitting that K-pop Demon Hunters does that both honor and K-P up, but also, you know, the musical tradition. You know, who used to make musicals?

Disney. They still make musicals. I don't know if they hit quite as hard. One of their stars, young Olivia O'Origo in High School the Musical. Of course, yes. How did I not see that coming? Yeah. There's so many examples from High School the Musical where she got her start.

A fitting title would be the song Start of Something New. Living in my own world. Didn't understand that anything can happen when you take a chance. Feels like the start of a classic I Want song in a musical. Right. Kind of establishing our characters' goals and aspirations and hopes and dreams and, you know, setting the stage, basically. That's pretty much what she says.

And as the song builds and grows, we get to. to hear more of that character's intentions. Okay. Okay. So I know I'm just playing some chorus into bridge into bridge. What you heard was originally that just solo Olivia singing and then build into first chorus saying something new could happen. Something new could happen. Something new is going to happen. changes the whole thing up. We don't get a second verse. We get a bridge or this second verse switchup that I'm talking about, which is very fitting because she's telling us something new is going to happen. She's got some duets on a high school musical like the one with Matt Carnett on the song, what I've been looking for. And of course, if it's a duet and it's in a musical, we need to have narrative progression and different perspectives. We're going to get them.

It's hard to believe that I couldn't see. You always see. there beside me. First verse is just like the most musical musical I've ever heard. Piano, done, dun, dun, setting out, things are happening. What's going to happen? Let's find out in the second verse. So good to be seen, so good to be heard.

Don't have to say a word. Okay, a few thoughts. First of all, to be clear, we're not talking about the OG high school, the musical. We're talking about high school, the musical, the series, the musical, or whatever it's called. Yeah, sorry, thank you. High school, musical, the musical, the series. Correct. Okay, so that's first what I wanted to establish.

Second, I'm a little less convinced by this one because I do hear some of these post-chorus sections we're hearing as more bridge-like in nature than like second verse. And yet I also think what you're trying to say is that it's not just about serving this second-verse function, but providing a model for departing from the verse chorus form as usual. And that I do, I do buy. Yeah, I think this is where she got a lot of the training in how to treat second verses.

They're very fungible. Like, if you've got a duet partner, the duet partner needs to do something different. They need to progress the narrative and take on their own perspective. Or maybe the song just need to keep on moving because the whole musical has to go somewhere. We can hear that on a song that she wrote for high school, the musical, the series, the soundtrack called All I Want. I found a guy told me I was a star. He held the door, held my hand in the dark.

So that's our first verse. She had a little bit of a cursive singing thing going on in this era. Totally. Well, this was cursive singing era. What is this? I'm guessing like 2018. Oh, this 2020. Peak cursive.

A little bit of the pronunciation of doc there. Okay, anyway. So yeah, cool track. I can hear the sort of foreshadowing of the Olivia Rodriguez to come. And second first? And I miss the days when I was young and night. I thought the perfect guy would come and find. Now happy as I'm so easily.

Cool. Is this like proto driver's license? It is. I mean, when I heard that modulation, I was getting serious power, valid vibe. serious Barry Manila vibes. And yeah, that seems like the template for driver's license, absolutely. Both use Rhodes as metaphors about love. Very cute.

But let's go back to Olivia's earlier song, All I Want. The way that the second verse progresses is not a total switchup. It's not the sort of spoken lyric that she does later. it's more some melodic embellishment, big change to the production. I have to point this out. I don't know how to drop this elegantly, but when I first heard this song, it was haunting me. Okay. This melody.

Yeah. I found a guy. He told me I was a star. He held the door, held my hand in the door. Wait. Oh, yeah. Wait, this is kind of familiar. What is it?

Is it like a stomp clap song? That is the first. first thing, oh my gosh, the very first thing I, my brain went lumineers? Is that what it is? It gave me a little lumineer vibe. I'm going to save you a half hour of my own frustration. Oh no, maybe it's like Avet brothers, Brooklyn, take me in. You don't know the place I've been. How about God, I feel like hell tonight. Tears of rage I cannot buy. Yep. It's up, Shale Crow. Wait, what is that song? That's strong enough. Strong enough. Wow.

Deep pull, Charles. Are you strong enough to be my man? Okay, okay, there it is. My man. Dr. Sloan? I found a guy. He told me I was a star. It's okay.

It's okay. We all borrow. Livia O'Rigo does like to borrow. And she's borrowing directly in this song, Drop Dead. You know all the words did just like heaven. You know, it turns out, Another precursor of the second verse switchup is the cures just like heaven, a song that she quotes directly and drop dead.

Full circle here. Show me, show me how you do that trick. The wonder makes me scream. She sticks me to love you said. Hmm. Verse one almost sounds like it's starting in the middle of the song. And verse two, it's a different melody. It's certainly.

similar, but I do hear the, you know, melodic departures. There's like a fungibility to it, which feels in line. Fair. I think she's putting herself in the cure universe a little bit. If she's not doing that, she's definitely making connections to a lot of other pop stars of the moment. I think about Sabrina Carpenter. Yes. Sabrina is doing this nonstop.

The best example I think is please, please, please. And verse two. I know I have good judgment. It's funny and it's ironic that only I feel that way. And verse two. I have a fun idea, babe. Maybe just stay inside. I know you're craving some fresher.

But the ceiling fan is so nice. When I talked to Amy Allen, the songwriter behind that song was Brina Carpenter. I asked her, why are you doing that? I suppose it was just a fun thing that Jack Antonoff, the producer, did on the side. And they were like, that's cool. Let's have fun. the rules. Yeah, I mean, we have a whole different chord progression here.

We, like, modulate to a new key temporarily. And this is something that Sabrina Carpenter loves to do, finding a new approach to the second verse. We did a whole episode about the song, Manchild, which has a first verse that begins this way. Describing the ridiculous manchuldron that end up in her life, second verse, caveman voice. You're so dumb.

Withering. Careful how you tread here, Charlie. I recall we got in some hot water with the manosphere after our breakdown of this song. I don't think I'm ever going to win them over, nor do I desire to. Sabrina Carpenter here is showing us some great vocal stylings on her second verses.

Not surprising that she also got her start in the Disney ecosystem, musical world. She likes to write very narrative songs that clearly draw from that. musical background. I love that insight because I feel like, and we might be perpetrators of this as well, that the Disney pedigree of stars like Olivia Rodriguez and Sabrina Carpenter is something to sort of like say in an almost mocking way or to be like, look how far they've come. And yet, it's such a foundational part of their craft that experience doing these musical theater songs that

as you point out, have this very specific structure, which is often very different than what you encounter in the pop world. I mean, without Disney, we don't get Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, let alone Kerry Russell and Ryan Gosling, who are in the same class of the Mickey Mouse Club as those other stars. So this is not me having any issue with the fact that at a young age, learning to develop your talent through the star ecosystem can be a great way to launch your artistic career. The other person who I think about most actually with this second verse change would be Chapel Row.

And her song's super graphic, ultra-modern girl. You know what they say? Never waste a Friday night on the first day. But there I was. In my heels with my hair straight. She starts the song with that spoken quality that she's so famous for. And it's in the second verse that we get a sung moment. And there's been a lot of comparison made between Olivia and Chapel.

You know, too often, of course, pop female stars are compared to each other and pitted against each other. But the one thing that they're both doing is that spoken style delivery. Chappell does it on Hot to Go. And she does it on Red Wine Supernova. And of course, between Sabrina Carpenter working with Amy Allen, Chaplain Roan, working with Dan Nigro on production, Amy and Dan are working with Olivia Rodrigo on Drop Dead. So I think that maybe connects the dots of what's going on here. One of the things I'm unsettled with, though, Nate, is what do we call this phenomenon? These second verses changing up.

When you and I spoke earlier today, we were doing some brainstorming. Yeah. You gave me the Supernova verse. Yes. I just think it's kind of fun. Unfortunately, Red Wine Supernova does the talk thing in the bridge, so I don't think that works. We could give it to Olivia. We could call it the Drop Dead verse.

I've got some other options, though. The verse versa? Nope. You're not smiling. The pivot verse, the mutated verse, the U-turn verse, the reverse, the reverse-engineered verse, or the reverse. Wow. Maybe the reverse? Reverse tickled my fancy a little bit

I've got a musical one for you though This is the one I'm going with I want to call it the Volta verse Okay Is this a reference to the Prague rock Avantgard band? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. When you were a child, you took piano lessons,

am I right? Yes. You are a musicologist with a PhD. Correct. Do you know what the prima volta is? God damn it, no. I hate when you do this to me. All right.

When you're looking at a piece of sheet music, and there's a little thing where it's got an ending, and it's like one, and then it's got another one that says two. The first one is the prima volta, and the second one is the second dora volta. The word volta is Italian for a turn, sort of like a change. Volta is also used in poetry.

It means a dramatic shift in tone or argument. It's when things switch up and everything takes a turn. It comes from music theory, the volta, celebrates Europe, European travel. I figure the Voltaverse, you're not excited. I know, and it crushes me because I can tell you are and you just like had your Eureka moment.

It should be right up my alley because as you point out, it's this like, you know, music technical term. And yet the Voltaverse, it doesn't, I don't know, it's not like rolling off the tongue. What about Versailles? Oh! The Versailles verse?

Or I like reverse is kind of intriguing. to me. The reverse? The reverse. Let's call it the reverse. Okay, the reverse. I like it. All right. We're backing it up. We're going back to reverse. Which is like what we hear in driver's license when, you know, the car starts up. Oh, she's backing up. Well, let's call it a working title. And we reserve the right to amend it at any point in time. But I'm glad we have it because I do think this is a phenomenon that we're going to continue to hear. I suspect that more and more will want to play with song form in this way, and that's such a powerful place to do it because we've been trained by so many generations of pop music to expect that second verse to follow the same parameters of the first.

If you're following the melodic math school of Max Martin and other Swedish songwriters, you're even hitting the same exact syllables. So when artists don't do that, there's something kind of exciting about it. It's maybe a smart move to stand out in an increasingly saturated world of music releases. If you want to stand out, just back it up, flip it, and reverse it. Switch on Pop is produced by Randick Cruz, edited by Lysa Soap, engineered by Brandon McFarlane,

illustrations by Iris Gottlie, video by Nick Rips. Our theme music is by Zach Tenario and Jossi Adams of ArchIrus. Remember the Vox Media Podcast Network, which is part of Vulture. Which part of New York Magazine, you can subscribe at nymag.com slash pod, and you can go to our website. site Switchdownpop.com where you can get all kinds of lovely things like Topex. Oh yeah. Hats. Oh yeah. Baseball and beanie and bucket variety. Very nice. Thongs. No. Oh, no. Sorry. We do have board shorts. Okay, board shorts. Yeah. Mugs. The mug is killer. It's a mainstap. You can find us on social media at Switch on Pop. Tell us what you're loving about Olivia

Rodrigo's latest. Tell us what your favorite banger from Jean-Battiste Lully. is and we'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, thanks for listening. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes? Good. This is for you.

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