From the first listen, it seems clear that Olivia Rodrigo is talking about her jealousy toward a particular person and how she can’t stop obsessing over this person in her song “Lacy.”
She begins the track by complimenting “Lacy,” singing, “Smart sexy Lacy, I’m losing it lately / I feel your compliments like bullets on skin / Dazzling starlet, Bardot reincarnate/ Well, aren’t you the greatest thing to ever exist?” Although the Grammy-winning musician compliments this “Lacy,” she’s a bit scornful. “Lacy” has all these things Rodrigo wants and it’s frustrating for the musician, who expresses her hatred toward them at the end of the song. She sings, “Lacy, oh, Lacy, I just loathe you lately / And I despise my jealous eyes and how hard they fell for you / Yeah, I despise my rotten mind and how much it worships you.” No matter how much Rodrigo wants to escape her draw toward “Lacy,” she can’t.
Rodrigo seemed to confirm the song was about this sense of jealousy during an interview at the Grammy Museum, per Variety. She shared, “I wrote this poem called ‘Lacy,’ about this sort of all-encompassing envy that I was feeling.” Rodrigo’s storytelling in the song is so vivid, you can feel her envy toward this person, and it has made many wonder who “Lacy” could be, but that seems to be a mystery when it comes to the track… well, kind of.
