Some songs you listen to once and then never again. “Driver’s License” is different. When you hear it you wanna play it over and over. This song is written by 18-year-old Olivia Rodrigo. She has been acting since 2015 in her first debut as Grace Thomas in the film “An American Girl: Grace Stirs Up Success.” Later, she starred as Page Olvera on the Disney Channel show “Bizaardvark.” In February 2019, she starred as Nini Salazar-Roberts on the Disney+ series “High School Musical: The Musical The Series.”

She wrote the song “All I Want” and co-wrote “Just for a Moment” with her co-star Joshua Bassett for the show. Shortly after starting to shoot season two of the show “High School Musical: The Musical The Series,” Rodrigo released the song “Driver’s License” on Jan 8, 2020. As of March 4 it is continuing it’s seventh week streak as the number one on the top charts. The song is about a heartbroken teenager who watches her ex move on to someone else, but there is more to it. Before the song was written, Joshua Bassett, her co-star, and Rodrigo were believed to be dating. Then again it’s unknown if they did. The song is rumored to be about their breakup. 

Bassett is currently dating Sabrina Carpenter who is 21 years old. The lyrics “And you’re probably with that blonde girl / Who always made me doubt / She’s so much older than me / She’s everything I’m insecure about” are rumoured to be about her. Shortly after “Driver’s License” was released, Bassett released his single “Lie Lie Lie” along with a car themed music video on Jan 14. The song was written pre-relationship. At that time, Rodrigo was dating her old co-star Ethan Wacker from “Bizaardvark”. The timing of the release was very convenient. Rodrigo and Bassett have neither confirmed nor denied these rumors.

Bassett is not the only one who released a song after Rodrigo. On Jan 22 Carpenter, who is believed to be the “blonde” in the song, released her single “Skin”. The lyrics “Maybe you didn’t mean it / Maybe blonde was the only rhyme” and “Don’t drive yourself insane”,  may be responding to “Drivers License”. Shortly after it was released, fans quickly defended Rodrigo, saying her song was not attacking Carpenter. 

The app TikTok plays a big role in this drama where fans would post their theories on TikTok. Before the song was released, Rodrigo herself posted a TikTok about it and a photograph of her on Instagram. In her caption she said she was going to drive through the suburbs crying, so she sat at her piano and decided to write a song about it. She posted it on her Instagram and played it for her producer and they all loved it. After deciding to move forward with producing, within days it was on the top charts. 

In an Interview with iHeartRadio, Rodrigo says, 

“The first couple days were just absolutely surreal,” 

The day it went number one on itunes charts her and her manager were so excited. She feels the reason it was so popular and everyone loved it was because she wrote it in the middle of her heartbreak so all her feelings were new and fresh. 

“I think the song is really really vulnerable and I wrote it in a really vulnerable place, ” said Rodrigo.