It was already clear that Olivia Rodrigo is in full feminist mode lately, together with her all-female music pageant, Daisy Chain Fields, happening subsequent Saturday in California’s Orange County. However it’s maybe even clearer now that Rodrigo is releasing a non-album monitor, “Serena Pleasure,” named after a outstanding character in “The Handmaid’s Story” who involves remorse her complicity with a repressive patriarchy.
“Serena Pleasure” was launched Friday as a really restricted version CD single, with solely 500 copies pressed, all out there solely at one document retailer, Analog Music Store in Tustin, California (the shop reported Friday night that every one 500 copies had been bought.)
After all, the tune will not be heard solely on Orange County CD gamers for lengthy. Analog Music Store – which to this point seems to be the one official supply of knowledge on the monitor – reported that Rodrigo’s plan was to ship it worldwide on Monday.
The existence of a tune referred to as “Serena Pleasure” was beforehand confirmed by Rodrigo in June, after followers noticed the title in a studio {photograph} itemizing 18 songs that had been being thought of for his album “You Look Fairly Unhappy for a Lady So in Love.”
When requested about it in a video interview with Etalk two months in the past, Rodrigo smiled and mentioned: “Really, I actually like [“Serena Joy”]. It did not match with the album. The document was very a lot the chronicle of a relationship – starting, center and finish. However I hope it turns into a part of one thing else later.
On Friday morning, Analog Music Store revealed an article in regards to the tune and its unique availability. “After we heard that Olivia Rodrigo was placing on an all-female music pageant in Orange County, we had been actually excited to see one thing so particular taking place proper right here in our hometown” (utilizing “hometown” loosely, however shut sufficient, since Tustin is adjoining to Irvine, the place Daisy Chain Fields is about). “As one of many space’s closest document shops, we wished to discover a solution to help Daisy Chain Fields.”
The publish continues: “We knew Olivia had a historical past of supporting document shops, however we had been nonetheless stunned after we heard the information: Olivia is releasing a brand new tune earlier than Daisy Chain Fields referred to as “Serena Pleasure,” and she or he needs bodily copies of the CD to be bought solely at Analog Document Store. And one of the best half… She’s giving it to us 3 DAYS earlier than anybody can hear it. Three days early. Greater than something, we’re grateful for what this represents: A artist who’s constructing a scene for ladies in music and elevating funds for ladies and ladies. An artist able to help an area unbiased document retailer and a hometown that’s a part of one thing actually particular.
Nobody needed to wait to listen to or no less than see the lyrics, no less than, since they had been printed straight on the entrance of the CD, in photographs launched by the shop. Inevitably, the music itself was leaked, though takedown orders had been issued.
The lyrics do not point out Serena Pleasure’s character or every other overt reference to “Handmaid’s Story”, however with that because the title, the that means of strains which may in any other case appear imprecise will be seen fairly clearly.
“Yeah, it is all for the trigger / For the sake of all of us / And in case you shut your eyes / Then it may’t be your fault,” Rodrigo sings in the beginning, in uplifting lyrics. “Here is a tower we constructed / Painted gold on the partitions,” she provides within the strains that comply with, maybe alluding to the recognition of literal gold leaf in some circles within the present period.
The important thing recurring lyric: “In the event that they do it to them / They may do it to you / In the event that they do it to them / They may do it to you.” ” These are the clearest references to the character in “Handmaid’s Story,” who is likely one of the few ladies who seems to carry a place of energy within the patriarchy that has taken over the America of the long run, however who comes to find that she will likely be simply as oppressed and in peril as any girl within the system she helped construct.
As Margaret Atwood writes of Serena Pleasure within the novel that impressed the tv sequence: “She now not makes speeches. She has turn into speechless. She stays at residence, however that doesn’t appear to agree together with her. How livid she have to be, now that she has been taken at her phrase.”
Many followers reacting on-line to the brand new tune had been depressed that Rodrigo was spreading his political wings a bit within the tune, though most agreed that it might have been a poor match for the shut relationship of “You Appear Fairly Unhappy for a Lady So in Love.”
“Neglect scorching ladies’ summer time, we’re getting into our period of dystopian propaganda,” one fan wrote whereas commenting on the tune’s Genius lyrics web page. He wrote one other, alongside the identical strains, “The Summer time of Scorching Ladies within the Fall of Fascism.”