Despite her image as a teen freak, Olivia Rodrigo is a pretty conservative songwriter. More Taylor Swift than Lorde or Billie Eilish. This is not a criticism. She is a master of her simple lane. Her second album saw her justify the hype. It may not be the most daring album around, but it may be the most likeable. The most impossible to hate.
"Lacy" is one of the best tracks.
Music
Rodrigo has stated that this song began life as a poem, which is strange, as the melody is so gorgeous. Things kick off with a sequence (same musical idea repeated at a different pitch, thank you Mrs O Meara). Rodrigo struggles slightly with the opening low g note, and in the chorus section, switches quickly into her falsetto. So she basically employs her whole range in a very short space of time, something she also does on "Vampire."
In the second verse, there is a slight delay on an extra vocal track, giving things a wispy quality. When the verse is repeated ("Bardot reincarnate," that line), an overdubbed harmony pops in, mixed super loud, as loud as the main vocal line.
There is no middle eight or bridge section. The passage after the second, which features some non-verbal vocal work, is there for atmosphere, a dynamic change and to make the return to the A section more satisfying.
Words
The meaning of "Lacy" is not of great interest to me. The narrator likes this Lacy, though knows it's not a good idea. An inevitable consequence of being a teenager - or maybe she's in her twenties now - is that many of Rodrigo's songs deal with teenage subject matter: dating, crushes, break-ups. Whether the track is a love song between two young women is neither here nor there.
Here's are interesting thing though. The time signature is four/four, right? And yet the lyrics to my ear are split in three. Chord changes often occur after three syllables:
Lacy Oh (chord change)
Skin like puff (chord change)
Dear Angel -(chord change)
Eyes wide as -(chord change)
And so on and so forth.
It makes me wonder what kind of poem this made. I'd wager that that it was split into lines of three stressed syllables:
Lacy Oh, Lacy
Skin like puff pastry
Aren't you the sweetest thing
On this side of hell?
Rodrigo may be a Paul McCartney fan. Ian McDonald’s description of “For No One” as an “elegant 4/4 waltz” could equally apply to “Lacy”:
If you enjoyed this piece, you may like my breakdowns on Fontaines DC and the dreadful new Eminem track.