{"id":650764,"date":"2026-08-22T13:40:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T13:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/650764\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T13:40:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T13:40:28","slug":"olivia-rodrigo-releases-handmaids-tale-inspired-song-serena-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/650764\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivia Rodrigo Releases ‘Handmaid’s Tale’-Inspired Song, ‘Serena Joy’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt was already clear Olivia Rodrigo<\/a> is in full feminist mode these days, with her all-female music festival, Daisy Chain Fields<\/a>, set to take place in California\u2019s Orange County next Saturday. But it\u2019s perhaps even clearer now that Rodrigo is releasing a non-album track, \u201cSerena Joy,\u201d named after a prominent character in \u201cThe Handmaid\u2019s Tale\u201d who comes to regret her complicity with a repressive patriarchy. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSerena Joy\u201d was released Friday as a very limited-edition CD single, with only 500 units pressed, all of them available exclusively at a single record store, Analog Music Shop in Tustin, Calif. (The store reported Friday night that all 500 copies had sold through.)<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, the song won\u2019t be heard exclusively in Orange County CD players for long. Analog Music Shop \u2014 which so far seems to be the only source of official information about the track \u2014 reported that Rodrigo\u2019s plan is to send it out wide to the world on Monday.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe existence of a song titled \u201cSerena Joy\u201d had already been confirmed by Rodrigo in June, after fans spotted the title in a studio photograph listing 18 songs that were under consideration for her \u201cYou Look Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love\u201d album.<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked about it in a video interview with Etalk two months ago, Rodrigo smiled and said, \u201cI actually really love [\u201cSerena Joy\u201d]. It didn\u2019t fit on the album. The record was very much a chronicle of a relationship \u2014 beginning, middle and end. But I hope that it\u2019ll be a part of something else down the line.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Friday morning, Analog Music Shop posted about the song and its exclusive availability. \u201cWhen we heard that Olivia Rodrigo was bringing an all-women music festival to Orange County, we were honestly just excited to see something this special happening right here in our hometown\u201d (using \u201chometown\u201d loosely, but close enough, since Tustin is adjacent to Irvine, where Daisy Chain Fields is taking place). \u201cAs one of the closest record stores in the area, we wanted to find a way to support Daisy Chain Fields.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe message continued, \u201cWe knew Olivia had a track record of supporting record stores, but we were still taken aback when we heard the news: Olivia is releasing a new song ahead of Daisy Chain Fields called \u2018Serena Joy,\u2019 and she wants the physical CD copies to be exclusively sold at Analog Record Shop. And the best part\u2026 She\u2019s giving it to us 3 DAYS before anyone else can hear it. Three days early. More than anything, we\u2019re grateful for what this represents: An artist building a stage for women in music and raising funds for women and girls. An artist willing to support a local independent record store. And a hometown getting to be part of something really special. That means a lot to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNo one had to wait to hear or at least see the lyrics, at least, since they were printed right on the front of the CD, in images disseminated by the shop. Inevitably, the music itself was leaked, although takedown orders were issued.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lyrics do not mention the Serena Joy character or any other overt \u201cHandmaid\u2019s Tale\u201d references, but with that as the title, the meaning of verses that might otherwise seem vague can be seen in fairly clear focus.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYeah, it\u2019s all for the cause \/ For the good of us all \/ And if you close your eyes \/ Then it can\u2019t be your fault,\u201d Rodrigo sings at the outset, in cautionary-tale lyrics. \u201cHere\u2019s a tower we built \/ Painted gold on the walls,\u201d she adds in the lines that follow, possibly alluding to the popularity of literal gold-leaf in certain circles in the current age.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe key recurring lyrics: \u201cIf they do it to them \/ They\u2019ll do it to you \/ If they do it to them \/ They\u2019re gonna do it to you.\u201d Those are the clearest referrals to the \u201cHandmaid\u2019s Tale\u201d character, who is one of the few women who seems to have a position of power in the patriarchy that has taken over a future America, yet who comes to find that she will be just as oppressed and endangered as any woman under the system she helped build.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Margaret Atwood writes of Serena Joy in the novel that inspired the television series: \u201cShe doesn\u2019t make speeches anymore. She has become speechless. She stays in her home, but it doesn\u2019t seem to agree with her. How furious she must be, now that she\u2019s been taken at her word.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMany fans reacting online to the new song were down with the thought of Rodrigo stretching her political wings a little in song, even if most were in agreement that it would have been a poor fit with the tight relationship focus of \u201cYou Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cForget hot girl summer we\u2019re entering our dystopian propaganda era,\u201d wrote one fan commenting on the song\u2019s Genius lyrics page. Wrote another, along similar lines, \u201cHot girl summer into fascism fall.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was already clear Olivia Rodrigo is in full feminist mode these days, with her all-female music festival,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[264],"tags":[275051,18,117,19,17,337,33325,118704],"class_list":["post-650764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-daisy-chain-fields","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music","tag-olivia-rodrigo","tag-the-handmaids-tale"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117139447984298913","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}