Olivia Rodrigo has never been shy about crediting the artists who shaped her voice, but her latest comments about Alanis Morissette underline just how formative that influence was. Speaking on the Music Makes Us podcast, the popstar reflected on hearing Jagged Little Pill for the first time as a teenager and realizing that songwriting could be radically honest, emotional, and unfiltered.
“I remember hearing Alanis for the first time when I was about 13… when Jagged Little Pill came on,” Rodrigo said. “You can write songs like that? … I just looked at music and songwriting in a completely different way.” The moment, she explained, unlocked a new creative permission.
That revelation would later become a defining trait of Rodrigo’s own work. From the raw heartbreak of “drivers license” to the biting frustration of “good 4 u,” her catalog reflects a lineage of confessional songwriting that Morissette helped bring into the mainstream in the 1990s.
What began as admiration from afar has since evolved into a genuine bond between the two artists. Their first meeting came in October 2021 through Rolling Stone’s “Musicians on Musicians,” where Rodrigo spoke openly about Morissette’s impact on her creative confidence. The connection deepened in May 2022, when Morissette surprised fans by joining Rodrigo onstage at Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre during the Sour Tour for a blistering duet of “You Oughta Know.”
Later that year, Rodrigo returned the respect by inducting Morissette into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame at Toronto’s Massey Hall.
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