Olivia Rodrigo - The Cure

Introduction

0:00You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishikesh Hirwe.

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Writing a Complex Love Song

2:18Olivia Rodrigo is a Grammy-winning singer and songwriter. In June 2026, she released her third album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love. The day it came out, it broke streaming records on Spotify and Amazon Music, and it debuted at number one on the Billboard charts. I talked to Olivia here in my studio, and I also visited her longtime producer and co-writer, Dan Nigro, at his studio. Dan Nigro won the Grammy for Producer of the Year in 2025, in part for his work with Olivia Rodrigo.

2:49And for this episode, the two of them told me the story of making Olivia's song, The Cure, from the original voice memo to the final version. But my head is full of poison, and my heart is full of doubt. I got toxins in my bloodstream, you tried hard to suck them up. And it feels like medication, and it's good for me, I'm sure. But it don't matter how your love feels anymore, it'll never be the cure.

3:29It'll never be the cure. My name's Olivia Rodrigo. And my name is Dan Nigro. We started working together, I think I must have been 16 or 17, which is crazy, because I'm 23 now, so he's known me my entire adult life and, you know, lots of my teenage life. We've collaborated on every song that I've ever put out. Were there any kind of big picture concepts or intentions that you had before you started writing?

4:03I set out to write this album, and I knew that I wanted to make it about romantic love in more of a positive sense. I think my last two records were heartbroken and angsty and all the feelings that you feel when you're a teenager. And I just sort of wanted to stretch a muscle and try to write love songs. And that's a hard thing to do as a songwriter, I think. Oftentimes, writing a song about how happy in a relationship you are just come across as like, braggy or weird or vapid. And so I kind of wanted to challenge myself to figure out what a love song meant to me and what it sounded like coming out of my mouth.

4:34And so we knew we wanted to do that, and I knew that I wanted to kind of twist it a little bit, because I knew all of my favorite love songs were really sad, you know? Like Love Song by The Cure, First Day of My Life by Bright Eyes, or Video Games by Lana Del Rey. These are all songs that are about, quote-unquote, being happy in love, but they're kind of devastating. And that's what makes them stick with you and what pulls on your heartstrings so much. I think when you're in a relationship, like a mature sort of relationship, it's like so multifaceted and layered. And, you know, not every day is like, oh, Sunshine and Roses, I'm the happiest person in the world.

5:06It's like complex. And I don't know, I think that's a fun challenge as an artist to try to capture that complexity.

Finding the Initial Idea

5:12Where do you think the story of writing this song first starts? I actually remember vividly being in my friend's Jeep, and I was sitting in the passenger seat, and I was talking to him, and I was just like, you know, I'm making this record, and I'm in love, and I love this person. And I'm just like so miserable so much of the time. I'm like very unhappy.

5:37And I was like, I don't know why. I can't, like, I just want to write love songs. And I remember him expressly telling me, he's like, you have to write about how you're actually feeling. You can't pretend to write a certain way. You can't write in the way that you think you're supposed to feel. Like, you have to be honest with yourself, and that's what's great about music. And, like, you just have to tap into that. It's a gift. And I was like, okay, like, sure. Could you tell me more about those simultaneous feelings of knowing that, oh, I'm in love with this person, but also I'm so unhappy?

6:09Was it because of being in love that you were unhappy? Like, I'm so in love, I'm miserable? Or were these just two separate rivers running in parallel? I don't know. I mean, I think falling in love can really, like, hold a mirror to you and show you parts of yourself that maybe before were kind of dormant. And sometimes you're in love, and it's not happy because there's something that's not working, and then that's why you're so sad. And so I remember kind of feeling emboldened after that conversation. I think a few days later, I wrote the initial sort of first draft.

6:42I'm not great at guitar. I'm, like, still sort of in a permanent state of learning. But I was trying to play a chord, and I played it wrong. I, like, messed up where my fingers were, but it actually just sounded cool. And I was like, oh, that's great. A wonderful thing about being a novice is sometimes you make a happy accident. So I started playing a chord progression that I liked. I was just sitting on my couch. It was, like, late at night, and I was deep in album mode.

7:13And when I'm writing, I try to force myself to write a song every day, even if I don't really feel like it. And I think this was actually one of those times where I didn't feel like it. I wrote a chorus that's, like, kind of bad, so I won't share it.

7:50Really? You don't want to share the bad chorus? No, it's, like, it got a lot better, so I can't show you because then people are going to, I don't know, it'll haunt me. Can you describe the bad chorus? I think the lyrics were, I'm unraveling and you can't stitch me up. I thought I'd feel better when I finally fell in love. We scrapped that chorus but kept the unraveled part. So that's the thing. Like, people always ask me if I have any advice for people who are kind of just starting out writing songs. And I always say, like, just don't be afraid to write the bad songs or, like, the bad choruses or whatever

8:22because there's always, like, a little nugget that you take and make it into something good. And so I think you just really can't be precious with it. I am so not a perfectionist when it comes to music and writing. I just write and write and write. And I think that that's obviously the most joyful way to be but also just the most productive. The next day after I wrote this, I brought it to Dan and I was like, I think that there's something here. And he was like, oh, yeah, there definitely is something here. She was really excited about it. And I was like, this is cool and it's dark and it's not something that I've heard you talk about before. And so we spent the day sort of figuring out the chorus and the bridge.

8:55I was kind of following her lead. Like, I could tell that she knew what she wanted to say. I remember driving to the studio and, like, being on the freeway on-ramp and being like, oh, the song's called The Cure. Like, that's the most distilled way to say this. Like, it'll never be The Cure. I remember coming up with that on the way to the studio and then bringing it to Dan. I was like, this is my verse and it's going to be called The Cure. We found the chords to the chorus. And then she started kind of riffing on some stuff. I actually have the voice moment.

9:26Should I play it?

9:29My blood is full of venom and my heart is full of doubt. Oh, there are toxins in my bloodstream that you tried to suck them out. I've got a blood and it is of our habituate. It numbs the pain for sure. But it don't matter what you give to me. It will never be the cure.

9:58Be the cure. It will never be the cure.

10:05Be the cure. It's so funny. It's changed so much even since then. But I just remember feeling like we were in a really good flow state and we were really getting somewhere with the song.

Recording in the Tiny Studio

10:17With The Cure, we recorded it so fast because I just wanted to quickly get the idea down. We made this whole record in Dan's tiny little studio that's so small and it was really annoying because the air conditioner didn't work like half the time we were making the record. It was like summer and hot. But I love that little studio. We've made so many songs in there and it just feels so homey. I struggle like trying to write a good song in a studio that's really grand and beautiful. I don't know. There's just something nice about feeling like you're just in a garage hanging out.

10:49I was sitting in my chair. She was sitting on the couch and these two microphones that are up on my piano were there. And instead of like micing the guitar properly, I literally just stood on the piano bench and played the guitar into the two piano mics. And it was like a really like rough take. And then she recorded her vocals to my guitar. All the pretty girls in the foreground of my mind I thought I'd done enough but they keep moving the line

11:22The first lyric is All the pretty girls in the foreground of my mind I thought I'd done enough but they keep moving the line. I think it's a lyric that really hits home for me. I think women in general and especially women in this industry it just constantly feels like the goalposts for us are just always changing and nothing's enough and it's this insatiable beast of achievement or beauty or whatever. And just in life I think people benefit so much off of women feeling like they're not enough or they need to be doing more. And it's just so exhausting.

11:53She recorded the vocal and I was like, what would it sound like with a double vocal? I thought I found the antidote this time I thought I found the antidote this time She did it and we were like, oh, that's cool. That sounds interesting. All of her other records, the vocal is like so intimately singular. Yeah, it just makes it feel intense and introspective. And there's no autotune and there's no like melodining or anything.

12:24Like they're just her vocal tracks. They kind of rub a little bit in spaces that makes it feel unsettling. And I feel like as much as like we have all the modern tools that we can like make a vocal feel perfect, it felt imperfectly perfect.

12:50So I wanted to make sure we like holistically kept it as raw as possible. I don't want to change a thing. But we recorded it so quickly the day that we recorded it that I never tuned my guitar. And so my guitar is actually like about 15 to 20 cents sharp. And so I ended up having to tune every other instrument to the guitar and the vocal because I didn't want to mess with it. When I played the piano, because the piano was actually in tune, I had to melodine the piano

13:26to be in tune with the guitar.

13:29I think the next thing I added to the song was the Juno bass.

13:36I wanted it to feel really intense.

13:41And I like the juxtaposition of something so organic against a synth. But my head is full of poison and my heart is full of doubt. I got toxins in my bloodstream. You tried hard to suck them out. And it feels like medication. And it's good for me, I'm sure. But it don't matter how your love feels anymore.

14:11It'll never be the cure.

14:18It'll never be the cure. My head is full of poison and my heart is full of doubt. I've got toxins in my bloodstream. You tried hard to suck them out. And it feels like medication. It's good for me, I'm sure. But it don't matter how your love feels anymore. It'll never be the cure. So Evo. I mean, it's brutal. It's brutal. The song is addressed to someone. And the idea of saying that to someone, this is cool and all, but it's not enough to actually make me happy.

14:51Was the version of that conversation something you had actually already had in real life? Or was this you figuring out that feeling? I think it was me figuring out that feeling. And I honestly think, I think it could be applicable to a lot of things. Like, I think it could be applicable to, like, your career or, like, having this friend or this house or whatever. Like, I don't know. I think that there's been something that I've been learning in my adult life. Like, all these things that I thought, like, oh, once I, like, hit this milestone, then I'll feel okay. I'll feel calm and I'll feel good about myself. And I think getting older is realizing that, like, no outside forces could ever make you feel totally happy and content.

15:28It's, like, totally an inside job. And it sounds kind of cliche, but it was, like, a really hard thing to learn. And I think life kind of teaches you that over and over if you don't really internalize it. I think I went into my first adult relationship sort of thinking, like, oh, this is going to be a thing. I'm going to feel happy and feel great about myself. But I actually think, like, being in a relationship just really complicates all of the issues that you have with yourself. I think it brings them to the surface and sort of makes it a lot harder. And I think that that's why it's so important for people to, like, be in relationships. You know, it's just, like, the best therapy anyone could ever go through.

15:59You just know yourself so much and you figure out what you want and, like, where the cracks in your foundation are, you know? And, yeah. More with Olivia Rodrigo after this.

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Building the Second Verse and Strings

18:21The song is very tense. And the production is very tense. I build up the guitar really, really intensely going into verse two.

18:34I think everyone thinks when they hear it the first time that the drums are about to come in, but they don't.

18:41Play a game in my head when I date a guy.

18:47Tally up the girls that he fucked till I start to cry. I love that lyric. It's a really harsh, sort of visceral line to say. And I think that's why I like it so much. I remember I was trying to write a wordy second verse, but couldn't come up with it. And at a certain point, I was just like, what if it's just baby I'm unraveled? Like over and over again. Sometimes less is more. I thought I found the antidote this time, but I'm unraveled.

19:20But I was sort of obsessed with the concept of unraveling. And I loved the visual image that it conjured up. I loved the feeling of the word. Also, I just kind of had this image of falling in love and feeling like all of the artifices and all of these fronts that you put up kind of just had to fall down. And that felt like an unraveling to me. And all of these like really deep, raw parts of yourself being brought up in the unraveling was sort of one of the themes of the album. So yeah, it means so much to me. And yeah, I just love how it kind of grows and builds and builds until it kind of like

19:52reaches ahead. And I'm just kind of like screaming, I'm unraveled at the very end. I remember Dan being like, hit that note that I'm unraveled, I'm unraveled, and being like, I don't know, like this is a lot. I don't know if I can do that. Like, this is crazy.

20:23And he's like, just trust me. And it's like, turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the song. We have an amazing friend, Paul Cartwright, who does all the strings on all of my albums,

20:55actually. And a lot of the string parts I recorded in MIDI first, like the chugging cellos are all like MIDI. For some reason on this song, I really liked the way that the MIDI strings sounded. So I just kept them. And then Paul played along to the MIDI strings. I remember him sending me a demo of it with strings.

21:31It really felt so beautiful and dark. I think strings just sound like being in love. You know what I mean? But I remember for some reason we like, I remember listening to it and was like, I think I was in like a really bad mood. And I think I wasn't ready to like hear the subject matter of the song. It's very honest and raw. And it's like kind of hard to admit to yourself that this is how you're feeling. And he sent me a demo and he's like, this is great, isn't it? And I was like, yeah, it's okay. I don't really want to listen to it right now. Like it was almost like too much for me to metabolize or something like that. And so Dan always makes fun of me for not liking the first draft.

22:06So you're kind of on the edge of your seat for a while until the drums come in. And that was done very intentionally.

22:19When you abstain from using the drums for so long that when they come in, it feels so important and it like really hits you.

22:29The drums are played by Sterling Laws, who's this incredible drummer. And the fills that he plays, I feel really emotional. I like feel them in my chest when he plays them.

22:51One of the reasons why I love this song so much and why I love the production so much is it kind of feels like you really have to earn that payoff. You know what I mean? It doesn't give it to you right at the first chorus. You kind of have to keep listening. It like keeps you hopefully sort of engaged until like the drums come in and the strings come in and it feels like this like soaring, huge payoff. Oh, because my head is full of poison and my heart is full of doubt. I got toxins in my bloodstream. You tried so hard to suck out.

23:24And it feels like medication. And it's good for me, I'm sure. But it doesn't matter how your love feels anymore. I think that the song is a little bit of a question. I think it's not like, oh, well, I figured out the meaning of love and life and here it is. It's like, oh, why can't this ever be enough? Which is the lyric. It's like, it's just genuinely asking.

23:54You know what I mean? And I think that it's a concept that I didn't have the like emotional intelligence maybe to understand when I was 19. Like, fair enough. But I think it took a lot of like growing and self-discovery and struggle, I think, to like make this song and come to the realizations that I came to while writing it. I think it's one of the most introspective songs I've ever written.

24:25Yeah, it means so much to me.

The Cure in Its Entirety

24:34And now, here's The Cure by Olivia Rodrigo in its entirety. All the pretty girls in the foreground of my mind I thought I'd done enough, but they keep moving the line I thought I'd found the antidote this time

25:09I thought I'd found the antidote this time All the nights I spent fighting bad thoughts in my room Feeling so alone, might as well be on the moon I thought I'd found the antidote with you I thought I'd found the antidote with you

25:42But my head is full of poison And my heart is full of doubt I got toxins in my bloodstream You tried hard to suck on love And it feels like medication And it's good for me, I'm sure But it don't matter how your love feels Anymore It'll never be the cure

26:13It'll never be the cure I used to play a game in my head When I date a guy I tally up the girls that he fucked Till I start to cry I thought I found the antidote this time I thought I found the antidote this time

26:50But I'm unraveling And my head is full of poison And my heart is full of doubt I've got toxins in my bloodstream You try hard to suck them out And it feels like medication And it's good for me, I'm sure

27:24But it don't matter how your love feels anymore It'll never be the cure It'll never be the cure Cause baby I'm unraveled

27:59Why can't you come stitch me up? Why can't it ever be enough? Why can't you come stitch me up? Why can't you ever be enough? It's not love Oh, because my head is full of poison And my heart is full of doubt

28:30I've got toxins in my bloodstream You try so hard to suck out And it feels like medication And it's good for me, I'm sure I'm sure of it Don't deny that all your love feels anymore It won't ever be the cure

28:56It will never be the cure

29:02It will never be the cure If you know what I'mbe Jahren You don't know when I ever be the cure It'll never be the cure The cure I'm anak I'm te vu I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm

29:32I'm To learn more, visit songexploder.net. You'll find links to buy or stream The Cure, and you can watch the music video. This episode was produced by me, Craig Ely, Mary Dolan, Kathleen Smith, and Tiger Biscop. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows and support them yourself at radiotopia.fm.

30:07And if you'd like to hear more from me, you can subscribe to my newsletter, which you can also find on the Song Exploder website. You can also get a Song Exploder shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi Keish Hirwe. Thanks for listening.

30:27Radiotopia. From PRX.

30:36There's a new podcast from Radiotopia called Lightbox. In the show, composer and host Mark Henry Phillips investigates how AI is affecting the music industry and the people who make it. The episodes feature interviews with the CEOs building AI music generation tools, and the Grammy-winning producers who are secretly using them, and the legendary musicians that are trying to stop them. Lightbox is a story about music, but also about what we lose when machines start doing the things that we thought made us human. Listen to Lightbox now at radiotopia.fm,

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