Songfacts®:

• "My Way" is one of the few moments on You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love where Olivia Rodrigo lets pure, unfiltered fury take the wheel. The song addresses another woman who has been crossing boundaries with her boyfriend, blurring the line between platonic friendship and flirtation in a way Rodrigo finds intolerable. She calls the girl out directly, staking her territory with a self-possession that feels new in her catalog.
  
  "I think I was just really in the heat of the moment writing it," Rodrigo told The New York Times Popcast, "and that's how it is, and sometimes you're like, 'I really need to get this out and I'm f---ing pissed,' and maybe it isn't the most evolved thing ever to say but I really loved this song and I loved the way it turned out and the sonics... The album isn't very angry at all and I think that's the angry touchstone, but I'm really proud of it, I stand by it."
• The track stands out because anger has rarely been Rodrigo's first instinct as a songwriter. Throughout much of her catalog, jealousy and pain tend to be directed inward. During "Enough For You," for instance, she compares herself unfavorably to another girl her ex appears to prefer. In "1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back," insecurity leaves her second-guessing every move she makes. Meanwhile, the resentment of "The Grudge" becomes a private burden she cannot quite set down. In each case, Rodrigo turns the microscope on herself.
  
  Rodrigo traces this pattern back to her earliest days as a child actress, when the entertainment industry conditioned her to see other girls as competition rather than allies. "It's sort of the thing of like, 'If you don't want to do this, we'll get another cute little 12-year-old girl to do it,'" she told Pitchfork. "I think it was some weird programming in my brain that tripped that wire. I think it's not specific to my experience, it's a larger play against women."
  
  Rodrigo added that as she grew older, she came to understand how much her female friendships meant to her, and how the intensity of those bonds was something to protect rather than fear.
  
  "My Way" flips that formula completely. The insecurity remains, but instead of becoming self-criticism, it transforms into something territorial and outward facing. It is, in some respects, the sound of Rodrigo finally rejecting the programming by no longer asking what she lacks, but deciding the more pressing question is why someone else can't take a hint.
• Rodrigo told Popcast that she was getting "some Gwen Stefani vibes" while writing the song. The comparison is revealing. Stefani built much of her career around songs delivered from a position of unapologetic self-possession, whether railing against expectations on "Just A Girl" or embracing a playful confidence throughout her solo work on Love. Angel. Music. Baby. What Rodrigo appears to borrow is less a specific musical template than an attitude: witty, direct, slightly mischievous, and entirely uninterested in pretending she isn't annoyed.
• "My Way" is rumored to be about Sydney Chandler, the American actress who is the ex-girlfriend of Louis Partridge, the English actor widely believed to be the subject of much of You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love. Rodrigo has not confirmed this connection publicly.
• Rodrigo wrote "My Way" with producer Daniel Nigro and songwriter Steph Jones, a Nashville-based writer with credits across pop and country, known for collaborations with artists including Sabrina Carpenter ("Espresso") and Kacey Musgraves ("Mexico Honey"). Nigro handled the production.
• Placed as Track 6 on Side 1 - the "Girl So in Love" half of the album - "My Way" serves as the first crack in an otherwise blissfully romantic narrative. The opening side largely captures the rush of early love: excitement, certainty, and the conviction that everything is finally falling into place. Then "My Way" arrives to remind us that even the happiest relationships occasionally inspire the urge to send someone a strongly worded memo.