Diving into Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Guts’ Album

After Olivia Rodrigo’s outstanding success with her debut, Sour, audiences eagerly awaited Guts, her sophomore album. It features themes of love, heartbreak, and growing up. The album includes a variety of heart-wrenching ballads and bold pop anthems. Overall, my top three songs on the album are “making the bed”, “get him back”, and “lacy”.

By Mallory Byl

all-american ***** starts off with light guitars before it promptly jumps into the Avril Lavigne-esque pop-punk that Rodrigo adopts on this album. The lyrics are witty and satirical, and Rodrigo ironically embraces her role as an “all-American girl”

bad idea right? demonstrates Rodrigo’s sarcastic side. The lyrics speak about her conflict about whether to get back with an ex. “Bad idea right?” is a fun pop song, fitting for a 2000s rom-com. 

vampire speaks about a manipulative, vindictive person, assumingly an ex-partner. However, the song isn’t just an average breakup song. Rodrigo uses the vampire metaphor to show that this person figuratively sucked the life out of her. In the bridge, Rodrigo sings, “You said it was true love/But wouldn’t that be hard/You can’t love anyone/’Cause that would mean you had a heart.”

lacy is a song that perfectly demonstrates Rodrigo’s growth since her last album, Sour. It features more advanced songwriting that references Brigitte Bardot, “Dazzling starlet/Bardot reincarnate” The song is largely interpreted as being about jealousy.

ballad of a homeschooled girl speaks about social anxiety. Rodrigo has an embarrassed tone throughout the song. “I stumbled over all my words/I made it weird, I made it worse”

making the bed: The song title is a play on words of the saying, “You’ve made your bed, now lie in it” By, “making her bed” she essentially is saying that the negative circumstances in her life are entirely her own doing.  

logical says that love is not logical. She describes someone manipulative and someone taking advantage of her. In the lyrics, she describes illogical things: “The sky is green/The grass is red” She claims that this person has made her believe illogical things such as leading her to believe they loved her. The song is mostly good, however, I dislike the lyric, “And now you got me thinking/Two plus two equals five” I think it’s an easy metaphor to understand, but a lazy and cheesy one.

get him back! expresses Rodrigo’s desire to get back with a boy she dated. However, the title has a double meaning. Rodrigo wants to “get him back” in a vengeful way, but she also wants to “get him back” by getting back together with him. I like that the song continues showing her witty side, “He said he’s six-foot-two, and I’m like, ‘dude nice try.’”

love is embarrassing’s meaning is evident by the title. She expresses the humiliating things she has done for love: “I consoled you while you cried/Over your ex-girlfriend’s new guy/My god, how could i be so stupid?” While this song is catchy, I think it is the weakest on the album.

the grudge Rodrigo paints a vivid picture of a manipulative, deceitful relationship. The slow, somber piano complements the song’s emotional lyrics; similar to her earlier hit, “drivers license” My favorite line in the song is, “And we both drew blood/But, man, those cuts were never equal”

pretty isn’t pretty expresses Rodrigo’s struggles with unrealistic beauty standards. The song entails the endless struggle of trying to meet beauty standards but never being able to. This song mirrors jealousy, jealousy, a song on her last album, Sour. She also shows that beauty standards are drilled into young girls’ minds everywhere: “And i try to ignore it, but it’s everything i see”

teenage dream shows Olivia Rodrigo’s struggle with fame and its expectations. After the success of her debut album Sour, Rodrigo was quickly cast into the spotlight, damaging her state of mind. The song also expresses Rodrigo’s apprehension over not being a teenager anymore and having to grow up. I enjoyed the hard-hitting outro of the song, where Rodrigo repeats, “They all say that it gets better/It gets better, but what if I don’t?” 

Tracklist (39 minutes)

all-american *****

bad idea right?

vampire

lacy

ballad of a homeschooled girl

making the bed 

logical

get him back!

love is embarrassing

the grudge

pretty isn’t pretty

teenage dream

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