166. Bad Idea, Right?

Nora loves the creative genius of Olivia Rodrigo — and loves even more how we’re all bound by such similar mistakes. 

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

INTRO MUSIC

I am a 40-year-old married mother whose main interests in life are her child’s hamsters, and collecting miniature things. I take pride in the gas mileage of my hybrid car. 

If my wedding vows go to plan, I have already had my last first kiss, and I will never again go through a breakup.

I am done with the butterflies, with wondering if they’ll call me back, with obsessively picking up my phone to see if there’s a missed call, or a text. There is a text: he wants to know what I want for dinner. There is a missed call: he wants to know if I got the text.

What I’m trying to say is that I am not Olivia Rodrigo’s target market.

And yet I can scream-sing her entire first album – SOUR – by heart and when her second album – GUTS – dropped, I played it straight through three times in a row and then zeroed in on a favorite: her single, Bad Idea, Right?

The premise is this: someone broke your heart after a tumultuous relationship. You’re barely put back together when they call (text?) and what do you do? You tell your friends something that is not exactly a lie and certainly not the truth, you ignore the voice in your head telling you that the momentary pleasure of this brief reunion will not be worth the inevitable fallout after, that re-opening the wound to squeeze a lemon in it IS A BAD IDEA, RIGHT?!?!

And you do it anyway.

And I’m not the only person in my age bracket and circumstance who loves Olivia Rodrigo or who loves this song and I have a theory as to why: it feels good to revisit these feelings from a safe distance, to sing to the version of yourself who made so many stupid mistakes. Not because we are ashamed of her, but because that version of us got us to this version of us. She took a bullet or two for us. And instead of being ashamed of her, we should lay flowers at her feet. Invite her to the dinner table. Sing her a song.

And then there’s this:

That a young, beautiful pop star is, in the year 2023, making the exact same choices and mistakes that I made in 2003, that my sister made in 1993, that our mothers made in 83, 73, 63…that our grandmothers and great-grandmothers made. So many things have changed: we can vote, own property, get our own credit card, wear pants in public…and so many things have not.

It’s one of many things that usher us into this universal sisterhood: that we’ll hand someone a barely mended heart and say break it again, I don’t even care! When in fact, we do care, deeply. The heartbreak we think we’ll never get over will someday be a distant memory, softened by time and breakup songs and the friends who pick us up the morning after.

I know so many young people who are in this kind of misery, and so many older people who miss this particular misery. I’m not saying you have to enjoy it, I sure didn’t! 

It’s a bad idea, and you’ll never in a million years be the last one to have the same one.

OUTRO MUSIC

CREDITS