Olivia Rodrigo gets “depressed” unless she writes “one song every day”

Olivia Rodrigo put 12 tracks on her GUTS album, but she could’ve put 365 songs on there, if what she says about her songwriting habits is true.

Speaking to Variety about her creative process, Olivia says, “These days, I try to write one song every day. I just feel like myself when I’m writing. If I don’t do it, I get depressed. I’m just writing songs to process what’s going on, whether in my personal life or in my perception of the world.”

However, she says the experience of writing GUTS helped her learn an important lesson: “You can never sit down at the piano and try to write something that everyone will like; that always results in a really bad song. … It taught me that I write songs that I want to hear.”

And while it’s great that Olivia created GUTS to feed her fans, she says above all it was necessary for her to make it for herself.

“When I write, my goal is to capture the essence of what I’m feeling in a way that’s going to be poignant and concise. On GUTS, I felt I had a lot I wanted to get off of my chest – the shame and embarrassment and regrets. All feelings that are hard to externalize in everyday life but I think this record gave me an outlet to process them,” she explains.

“It was a very important album for me to write as Olivia the person.”