It was already clear Olivia Rodrigo is in full feminist mode these days, with her all-female music festival, Daisy Chain Fields, set to take place in California’s Orange County next Saturday. But it’s perhaps even clearer now that Rodrigo is releasing a non-album track, “Serena Joy,” named after a prominent character in “The Handmaid’s Tale” who comes to regret her complicity with a repressive patriarchy.
“Serena Joy” was released Friday as a very limited-edition CD single, with only 500 units pressed, all of them available exclusively at a single record store, Analog Music Shop in Tustin, Calif. (The store reported Friday night that all 500 copies had sold through.)
Of course, the song won’t be heard exclusively in Orange County CD players for long. Analog Music Shop — which so far seems to be the only source of official information about the track — reported that Rodrigo’s plan is to send it out wide to the world on Monday.
The existence of a song titled “Serena Joy” had already been confirmed by Rodrigo in June, after fans spotted the title in a studio photograph listing 18 songs that were under consideration for her “You Look Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love” album.
Asked about it in a video interview with Etalk two months ago, Rodrigo smiled and said, “I actually really love [“Serena Joy”]. It didn’t fit on the album. The record was very much a chronicle of a relationship — beginning, middle and end. But I hope that it’ll be a part of something else down the line.”
On Friday morning, Analog Music Shop posted about the song and its exclusive availability. “When we heard that Olivia Rodrigo was bringing an all-women music festival to Orange County, we were honestly just excited to see something this special happening right here in our hometown” (using “hometown” loosely, but close enough, since Tustin is adjacent to Irvine, where Daisy Chain Fields is taking place). “As one of the closest record stores in the area, we wanted to find a way to support Daisy Chain Fields.”
The message continued, “We knew Olivia had a track record of supporting record stores, but we were still taken aback when we heard the news: Olivia is releasing a new song ahead of Daisy Chain Fields called ‘Serena Joy,’ and she wants the physical CD copies to be exclusively sold at Analog Record Shop. And the best part… She’s giving it to us 3 DAYS before anyone else can hear it. Three days early. More than anything, we’re grateful for what this represents: An artist building a stage for women in music and raising funds for women and girls. An artist willing to support a local independent record store. And a hometown getting to be part of something really special. That means a lot to us.”
No one had to wait to hear or at least see the lyrics, at least, since they were printed right on the front of the CD, in images disseminated by the shop. Inevitably, the music itself was leaked, although takedown orders were issued.
The lyrics do not mention the Serena Joy character or any other overt “Handmaid’s Tale” references, but with that as the title, the meaning of verses that might otherwise seem vague can be seen in fairly clear focus.
“Yeah, it’s all for the cause / For the good of us all / And if you close your eyes / Then it can’t be your fault,” Rodrigo sings at the outset, in cautionary-tale lyrics. “Here’s a tower we built / Painted gold on the walls,” she adds in the lines that follow, possibly alluding to the popularity of literal gold-leaf in certain circles in the current age.
The key recurring lyrics: “If they do it to them / They’ll do it to you / If they do it to them / They’re gonna do it to you.” Those are the clearest referrals to the “Handmaid’s Tale” character, who is one of the few women who seems to have a position of power in the patriarchy that has taken over a future America, yet who comes to find that she will be just as oppressed and endangered as any woman under the system she helped build.
As Margaret Atwood writes of Serena Joy in the novel that inspired the television series: “She doesn’t make speeches anymore. She has become speechless. She stays in her home, but it doesn’t seem to agree with her. How furious she must be, now that she’s been taken at her word.”
Many fans reacting online to the new song were down with the thought of Rodrigo stretching her political wings a little in song, even if most were in agreement that it would have been a poor fit with the tight relationship focus of “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love.”
“Forget hot girl summer we’re entering our dystopian propaganda era,” wrote one fan commenting on the song’s Genius lyrics page. Wrote another, along similar lines, “Hot girl summer into fascism fall.”
