Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo sing over each other

Once upon a time, an averagely talented male teenager with curly brown hair single-handedly made pop culture history and kick-started the next generation of A-list pop stars when he was a shitty boyfriend to two musical young girls. I’m talking, of course, about the one and only Joshua Bassett – the Disney star turned devout Christian who dated both Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter in 2019 and 2020. He and Olivia famously starred in High School Musical – the musical – the series together as Gen Z Troy and Gabriella (yes, that’s the real name of the show, and no, we didn’t do a reboot). They fell in love in real life, but Josh quickly turned his attention to Sabrina, another Disney star, and so the fruitful scandal began.

In 2024, we live in a world where Olivia and Sabrina are some of the biggest pop stars in the world, and it all started with this juicy story. Although all three members of the love triangle have written several songs about the situation, Joshua’s Olivia and Sabrina songs aren’t exactly making the Billboard charts, the Grammy nominations, or any of your playlists. So, for now, we’ll limit ourselves to discussing Olivia and Sabrina’s songs. From a gifted pop analyst, here are all the songs Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter have written about each other. This saga will always be fascinating.

Olivia Rodrigo songs about Sabrina Carpenter

“Driver’s license”

Sigh. The innocent little tune that started the controversy over the best pop stars of our time. When Olivia was 17 and had no idea she was about to become an A-list star, she sang quite explicitly about Joshua moving on with Sabrina. “And you’re probably dating that blonde girl / That always made me doubt,” Olivia says in the first verse. “She’s so much older than me / She’s everything I’m insecure about.” This one isn’t rocket science: Sabrina is the blondest blonde there is, she’s four years older than Olivia, and she dated Joshua after Olivia did. It’s just math.

“Déjà-vu”

I was speechless when I first heard this pop magic. In “deja vu,” Olivia sings about how Joshua does the same shit with Sabrina that he used to do with her – things like driving to Malibu, eating strawberry ice cream, Joysinging in the choir, listening to Billy Joel, etc. She sings in the chorus, “So when you gonna tell her / That we did that too? / She thinks it’s special / But it’s all reused.” Olivia gets more specific about Josh’s new girlfriend in the second verse when she sings, “Another actress / I hate to think that I was just your type.” Ugh. If you’ve seen Life and I or Work on itYou know that Sabrina is one of the greatest actresses of our time.

(perhaps) “pointed”

Okay, it’s a “maybe” because my main theories on the subject of this song involve Sabrina, Gracie Abrams, and Taylor Swift. That being said, I’m going to make my pretty strong case for Sabrina. In the second verse, Olivia sings “Dazzling starlet, Bardot reincarnate” and also references headbands. If you’ve ever seen photos of Brigitte Bardot and the “Espresso” singer, you know that description pretty much fits Sabrina, *who frequently wears headbands*. To take our analysis a step further, Olivia also says, “You’ve got the only thing I want.” Dare I say I interpreted the “one” as a friendship or mentor/mentee relationship with Taylor Swift. (Olivia and Taylor have been secretly in a cold war ever since Taylor claimed that “deja vu” sounds like “Cruel Summer” and ended up getting 50 percent of Olivia’s royalties from that song. SOUR Rail.)

The outro of “lacy” also convinces me that Sabrina was the inspiration for it, as Olivia sings, “Lacy, oh, Lacy, it’s like you’re after me / You poison every little thing I do.” Since the beginning of Olivia’s career, she has been compared to Sabrina because of her Joshua drama and “driver’s license.” Sabrina is undeniably a major part of Olivia’s pop star story. But then Olivia also says she loathes her own “jealous” eyes and admits that her “corrupt” mind “worships” this person. Which brings us back to the “driver’s license” lyric: “She’s everything I’m insecure about.” Olivia always seemed to “worship Sabrina” in some ways. I’ll leave you with my brilliant point.

Sabrina Carpenter Songs about Olivia Rodrigo

“Skin”

I’m a fan of Sabrina and have been for years, but I will never support this one song and I honestly don’t think she stands by it either. “Skin” was a tragic move by Team Sabrina; it’s a very mediocre piece of music and a very embarrassing piece of recent pop culture history. The diss track came out exactly two weeks after “Driver’s License” and was a direct response to Olivia’s hit.

“Maybe we could’ve been friends / If I’d met you in another life,” Sabrina sings in the first verse. “Maybe then we could pretend the words we write don’t mean anything / Maybe you didn’t mean it / Maybe ‘blonde’ was the only rhyme.” It was brutal because A. Olivia was literally 17 when she wrote that and B. she couldn’t have predicted that Sabrina would be bullied online because of it. Not to mention, Olivia didn’t use “blonde” as a rhyme in “driver’s license,” so that part of “Skin” just doesn’t make sense.

In the chorus, Sabrina sings, “You can try / To get under my, under my, under my skin / While he’s on mine,” and it just feels like a low blow. For example, was it necessary to brag about filming Joshua Bassett after he had just broken teenage Olivia’s heart? I’m afraid it wasn’t, especially given that Olivia didn’t say anything unkind about Sabrina in “Driver’s License.” I think Sabrina feels the same way now, because she never plays “Skin”.

“because I liked a boy”

This song is what I like to call “Skin” (the grown-up, mature, actually good music version). In “because I liked a boy,” Sabrina directs her anger at the social media trolls, not Olivia. The right target! And the songwriting is A+++. “We bonded over the Black Eyed Peas and complicated exes,” she sings in the first verse. (Yes, Olivia is the “complicated ex” in question.) Later in the song, Sabrina recalls Josh telling her she was “too late” to be his “first love,” another reference to Olivia.

In the chorus, she addresses her haters: “I’m a hot topic on your tongue / I’m a comfort food stealing from the youth / Tell me who I am, I guess I don’t have a choice / All because I liked a boy.” Yeah, call her. If “because I liked a boy” isn’t on the setlist for the Short and sweet Tour, Team Sabrina will hear from me.