In her rendition of The Magnetic Fields’ ‘The Book of Love’ for War Child Records’ HELP(2), Olivia Rodrigo gently brings us into her inner world. It’s admirable that she places her goodwill aside to use her immense cultural gravity to draw fans towards the realities children face in Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine, and Yemen. Her involvement alone guarantees commercial reach, and she deliberately redirects that momentum to support this album, all of whose proceeds go towards defending the rights of children surviving conflict around the world.
The music builds from a single, steady pedal tone that never really reaches an emotional climax. The energy of the song just slowly dissipates outwards into space in a way that mirrors Stephen Merritt’s lyrics about a concept too vast to contain in any physical tome. Where Merritt’s original relies on his wry sense of irony and deadpan voice, Rodrigo’s youth and plainspoken delivery flips the track into something disarmingly sincere. Viewed alongside her recent intersections with David Byrne and Robert Smith, you get the sense that Olivia is setting herself up to make another big leap in the quality of her songwriting and output.
“Olivia Rodrigo @ Theatre at Ace Hotel 10 09 2023 (53423574498)” by Justin Higuchi is licensed under CC BY 2.0.