Deja Vu by Olivia Rodrigo Song Analysis Essay

Olivia Rodrigo’s recent song, “Deja Vu”, is just one of her most popular songs. As an added part of background information, Olivia Rodrigo is a teenage artist who has broken and is currently still breaking music history. She also appears as the main character in the new reboot of High School the Musical and was paired up with another teenage actor, Joshua Bassett. Olivia has been speculated to have written her newest album about Joshua because they recently split up. In multiple songs on her album, including “Deja Vu”, the lyrics are making fans suspicious of whether or not these songs are about the famous ex-couple. Many fans have started rumors that Bassett left Rodrigo for another actress, Sabrina Carpenter, which is speculated to be anonymously brought up in the lyrics. The song itself could be self-explanatory, however, the music video helps the lyrics truly tell the story of how heartbroken the artist is. As well as portraying the overall message and how the lyrics and music video help develops the story of heartbreak.

After watching the music video, as an audience, we can determine the key message Rodrigo wants to get across. The message is determined to be that Olivia Rodrigo is utterly heartbroken seeing her previous partner with another woman. This explains why she continuously asks in the chorus of the song, “Do you get Deja Vu when she’s with you?” referring to her lover showing love to the new unnamed woman that he used to show Olivia when they were together. Rodrigo is shown throughout the video with a mirrored image of the unnamed woman switching back and forth which further displays the comparison between her and the new woman through what seems to be a representation of “deja vu”. On another note, at the beginning of the music video, Olivia is driving with her convertible top down while eating ice cream. She explains in the lyrics, “Car rides to Malibu, strawberry ice cream, one spoon for two.” which helps the audience infer that she is starting the story with something sweet she remembers from the relationship, she also is demonstrating it while riding in her car eating ice cream. However, she is alone in this scene, so the audience can realize that she is content with being alone at this point.

In the build-up to the chorus of the song, Olivia Rodrigo is shown peeking in on a woman (who is assumed to be the new woman) and she is in awe at how beautiful that woman looks in an emerald dress. We then see Olivia in the same green dress admiring herself in the mirror. During this scene, the bridge starts and the lyrics entail, “So when you gonna tell her, that we did that too? She thinks it’s special but it’s all reused…”  which can help the audience further gain information on the unexplained story about how she shows her frustration that she feels like she was just being used and that nothing that she and her previous lover did was even special. Before the scene changes, there is a flashing replicated image of herself behind her in the mirror, but she does not seem to notice. As Olivia walks into a dim-lit room, we are shown multiple televisions all showing different angles and times of the woman in the dress and on the beach. Olivia repeatedly rewinds the same clip on one of the televisions and smiles as she watches her. As she is replaying the clips, the chorus ends and starts a new verse which says, “Do you call her? Almost say my name ‘cause let’s be honest, we kinda do sound the same.” this is referring to another actress who is explained in the upcoming verse.

Towards the end of the music video, the television switches to Olivia Rodrigo on a beach with the woman she is admiring while she is sitting next to her and seems to be comparing each part of her appearance to the woman. The audience can notice that Rodrigo went from smiling looking at the woman to feeling insecure over time. After the beach scene, it cuts to multiple screens of her matching every aspect of the woman. She is styling her hair the same way, wearing the same clothes, and recreating the same poses the other woman is making. Once the montage is over, Olivia is watching the many televisions when the woman on the screen waves back at her. Rodrigo is noticeably confused and frightened because she was not aware that the woman was watching her. The audience’s attention is then directed towards her realizing that she is angry about this situation while the chorus repeats many times and decides to smash the televisions with a hammer. During this part, the lyrics are exclaiming “...a different girl now, but there’s nothing new, I know you get deja vu.”, which pulls together the idea of this whole scenario where both of them look almost exactly alike.

Although there was not a sign of the boy Olivia mentions in this song, as an audience we can determine that this music video was directed more towards how insecure she is now once he left her for another woman. The main point of this music video is that she is following around a woman that she finds beautiful, but she does not realize until towards the end that this woman’s appearance makes her angry about her own body and makes her resent this person, even though she truly did not do anything wrong. There are many references to deja vu in this music video and they are represented quite well. It also works well with developing this story which started as a harmless admiration but turned into unsolicited revenge.