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A song cut from Olivia Rodrigo’s third album resurfaced as a sold-out CD exclusive, then a stream, funding her first Daisy Chain Fields festival.
Olivia Rodrigo wrote “serena joy” with her longtime producer Dan Nigro, naming it after the character in The Handmaid’s Tale: a former religious broadcaster who marries into Gilead’s ruling class, only to find herself trapped by the same system she helped build. Muse wise, the track leans into the clatter, synth-driven new wave sound that runs through Rodrigo’s third album, with layer synths that critics have compare to early Devo, closer to the record’s brighter, more manic corners than its ballads.
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It was recorded during sessions for You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, the thirteen-track album Rodrigo released on Geffen Records this past June to a number one debut on the Billboard 200. The record is structured as two sides tracing a single relationship from its start to its end, and that structure is reportedly why “serena joy” got cut. The song’s existence only became public knowledge in June, when a leaked prototype tracklist showed eighteen candidate songs under consideration for the finished thirteen. Rodrigo addressed the outtake in a June interview with Etalk. “I actually really love that song,” she said. “It didn’t fit on the album.”
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Rather than shelve it, Rodrigo gave “serena joy” away in stages. On August 21, five hundred CD copies went on sale exclusively at Analog Record Shop, an independent vinyl and hi-fi store in Tustin, California, established in 2012 and located about eight miles from her upcoming festival site. The run sold out within hours, and copies have since resurfaced on resale sites for upward of $300. Three days later, on August 24, Rodrigo announced the song’s arrival on streaming platforms with a post on social media, and the track went wide through Interscope Records, a sister label to Geffen under the same Interscope Geffen A&M umbrella.
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A portion of the proceeds feeds the fund behind Daisy Chain Fields, the inaugural all-women charity festival Rodrigo announced in June as a spiritual successor to Lilith Fair, the touring festival she has credited as a formative influence on her career. The event lands today, August 29, at Great Park in Irvine, California, where Rodrigo headlines a bill that also includes Chappell Roan, Doechii, Garbage, Mitski, and the Breeders across two stages built to run without overlapping sets so fans can catch every act on the bill, in temperatures organizers expect to reach the low nineties. KATSEYE withdrew from the lineup two days ago after a member’s ankle injury, with Devon Again added in their place. Sarah McLachlan, who co-founded Lilith Fair, joins Karen O and Stevie Nicks as special guests. Organizers have said one hundred percent of the festival’s own net proceeds will go to organizations including Planned Parenthood, Baby2Baby, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the National Domestic Workers Alliance, with capacity expected to reach as many as 45,000 people. Rodrigo is scheduled to close the night on the festival’s Dandelion Stage at 8:40 p.m.
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