Olivia Rodrigo On Capturing Lucy Gray Baird’s Soul In ‘Hunger Games’ Oscar Short-Listed Song “Can’t Catch Me Now” – Crew Call Podcast
12.01.2024 - 00:05
/ deadline.com
She’s about to turn 21 next month, but when it comes to matters of the human heart, singer songwriter actress Olivia Rodrigo is wise beyond her years.
When it comes to spinning poetry from fractured relationships and trampled hearts, Rodrigo is arguably in the same league as the mega Princess of Pop, Taylor Swift.
“In my albums, they’re very diaristic in nature,” she tells Deadline’s Crew Call podcast in a special episode co-hosted by Katie Campione.
No more is this evident in her Oscar short-listed end-credits song from Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds Snakes, “Can’t Catch Me Now,” which is written from the point of view of Rachel Zegler’s nomadic bluegrass singer-turned-fierce pen fighter, Lucy Gray Baird and the emotional release and triumph she beams in after breaking off her romance with Hunger Games mentor Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), who we all now becomes the mega villain in the core Hunger Games canon.
Says Rodrigo, “I really was so inspired by her and her actions and the plot. I remember there was one scene in particular, there’s a scene in the movie, no spoilers, but something really intense happens. And there’s this overhead shot of all these birds in the trees that are just like ducking in and out. And it was like the climax of the movie for me. And I remember thinking, I really want to write a song that captures that exact frame.”
“Can’t Catch Me Now” features piercing passionate lyrics that vividly capture Baird’s spirit:
But I’m in the trees, I’m in the breeze
My footsteps on the ground
You see my face in every place
But you can’t catch me now
Through wading grass, the months will pass
You’ll feel it all around
I’m here, I’m there, I’m everywhеre
But you can’t catch me now
No, you can’t