Olivia’s New Song “So American” Is A Not-So-Subtle Ode To Her BF Louis
Wait, did she just say she’s going to marry him?
It’s not often that Olivia Rodrigo shows her lovey-dovey side in her music. In fact, she’d never really released a proper love song... until now. The last track on the deluxe version of Guts is an unexpectedly romantic ending to the punky album, and the lyrics make it incredibly clear that Rodrigo’s most intimate song is an ode to her boyfriend, Louis Partridge.
“So American” was the only one of Guts (Spilled)’s five bonus tracks that fans hadn’t heard prior to the deluxe album’s release. Rodrigo had previously released the first four — “Obsessed,” “Girl I’ve Always Been,” “Scared of My Guitar,” and “Stranger” — as “secret tracks” on special-edition vinyls, and put a special highlight on “Obsessed” by performing it on her Guts World Tour. The mysterious fifth song’s title immediately caught fans’ attention, since the new album closer mirrored the name of its opener, “All-American B*tch.” But as it turned out, the vibes of these two bookends couldn’t be more different.
In “So American,” Rodrigo gushes about being so in love with a guy, to the point where she even admits, “Oh God, I’m gonna marry him.”
The song’s muse isn’t hard to figure out, since Rodrigo is romantically linked to British actor Louis Partridge. The title is lifted from something Rodrigo’s lover tells her in the chorus: “He says I’m so American.” The first line of the song reinforces the fact that Rodrigo’s singing about someone from across the pond: “Drivin’ on the right-side road.”
But the lyrics get more specific than just Rodrigo’s love interest’s nationality. She also sings, “He thinks I’m pretty wearin’ his clothes,” which fans took as a reference to the various times Rodrigo has been spotted wearing something Partridge recently wore.
The bridge also starts with Rodrigo apologizing if her confession of love is “a little too much, just a little too soon.” The seems to fit with their dating timeline, since they only first sparked dating rumors in October 2023, so they’ve likely only been together for about five months.
Speaking of timelines, Rolling Stone revealed that Rodrigo wrote “So American” after the standard edition of Guts was released in September 2023. So it totally makes sense for the song to be about the relationship that started shortly after that.
