“I love the horror of it all”: The singer-songwriter confronts her “super villain” exes on her debut album. “I have ‘Be Honest’ tattooed on my wrist,” Olivia O’Brien tells Apple Music. “Honesty is the best policy—that saying never gets old. It always applies.” This is a theme throughout PIXIE, the singer-songwriter’s full-length debut: Truth is stranger than fiction, and her romantic experiences, while occasionally painful, have yielded some incredible tales. PIXIE paints several portraits, all inspired by people that have crossed O’Brien’s path—friends, lovers, exes, “super villains” for whom she rues the day she met and more. She confronts abusers with the sparse but intense “Goodman”, and (good-naturedly) calls out her friends who can’t quit bad boyfriends on “Girl, Just Be Alone!”. But she’s most confident when she’s letting loose a little bit, whether she’s getting silly on “I’m Perfect” or diving into the anxieties of adulthood on “Quarter Century Blues”. “If I hadn't gone down all the wrong turns and made all the decisions or had all the things that were out of my control happen to me,” she explains, “I wouldn't have made this album.” Read on for O’Brien’s thoughts on each track of PIXIE. “Dream Girl” “The song itself is about this guy that I was in this weird situationship with for way too long of a time. I wasn't even attracted to him at first; I liked him because he was so obsessed with me and it felt really nice, and we had a lot in common. Then he just turned evil once he realised I was a human being with feelings and emotions and that I wasn't this person that he created in his head and idolised for whatever reason. As soon as I became real to him, it was horrible—it was like dealing with a monster for a year. And of course, as soon as this person gives you something and then pulls it away, you want it more.“ “Icarus” “I was really into Greek mythology growing up, and I just think the story of Icarus is just a great metaphor for my life—just being told that you can't do something and wanting to do it more. Whether you interpret that as taking a risk, or maybe letting your ego take over and doing something bad because you think you could be invincible, even though you're definitely not, however you may interpret it, I think it's just a great story. It's one of my favourites.” “I Always Say I’m Leaving” “I wanted to make something that sounded like MGMT and M83, stuff that I listened to when I was driving around with my friends in high school, that kind of vibe. I had so much fun doing those ad libs. The song is 100% about the same guy as ‘Dream Girl’.” “Guest” “I'd actually just had less of a situationship and more of like a very small fling, but I just felt like, damn, he's not over his ex, and I'm just like taking the place in his bed right now. I realistically know that I'm not a relationship person. Every time I get out of a relationship, I'm like, why did I do that? I think something is so wrong with me in the fact that I just love the yearning. I love the horror of it all, which maybe is why I'm an artist, or I'm an artist because I like that.” “The Masochist” “There's so many times when I'm like, goddamn it—this person thinks that they broke my heart, and they think I'm so sad about it, when really I just got a whole album worth of songs and I'm not sitting around crying about this person. I'm sitting there writing good shit. When I get my heart broken, I am back out partying with my friends, having a good grand old time, taking cute photos of myself. So I'm like, if any of you literal losers think that you hurt me, you should be offended by the fact that I even liked you, because I like horrible super villains.” “Take What You Need” "I've always felt like I am kind of a pushover, which a lot of people would be surprised by because I come off as such a strong personality. But I can be a little bit of a chameleon: You put me in any room and I will change myself to fit that mould. I'll act accordingly as to not ruffle any feathers. I think that comes from being bullied as a kid and just being insecure and wanting to fit in all the time. I won't talk about the good things that happen to me because I don't want to make you feel like you're not good enough.” “Written by a Man” “Once I had ‘Dream Girl’ and ‘Written by a Man’, I was like, wait, why is this literally a manic pixie dream girl album? This would be her telling her story like, 'Hey, I'm actually not a one-dimensional character. This is how I felt the whole time when you all were focusing on this male protagonist that I was written to further his story and then leave.'” “Goodman” “It's about every possible form of abuse that you can think of—emotional abuse, abuse of power, physical abuse, just all the things that women go through and that are minimised and we're told we can't speak about because, 'Oh, you're going to ruin his life.' I just kind of wanted to call out all forms of that. I wanted it to be in a thriller movie so badly with a female protagonist that, like, kills her husband because he was like abusive or something, like a dark, dark feminist thriller. That's my dream for that song.” “Quarter Century Blues” “I've always been so afraid of getting older because I was 16 when everything happened for me. I would walk into any room, and everyone's like, 'You're so young. You're the youngest person I literally ever met. How did you get into this club?' And then you get to like 21, and people are still like, 'You're young, really young,' and you're a baby, but it's not the same thing. And then you get to 25, and everyone's like, 'You're a normal age. You're supposed to be here. You're an adult.' I thought by 25 I would be doing something way different than what I'm doing. I thought I would have had, I don't know, maybe more serious or better relationships. So many things just went in a completely different way than I ever thought they would and that's scary. But it's OK.” “Girl, Just Be Alone!” “Two of my close friends were always in relationships, and every time I would talk to them, it was all they would talk about. One friend started going to sex and love addicts meetings, but she wasn't addicted to sex at all—she was literally addicted to love. She could not have one single moment where she didn't have a really intense crush. If she didn't have someone to text or call or talk to, she would call me and be like, 'I'm going to die alone.' I wrote this for her and my other friend. It's OK! You won't have this feeling if you actually let yourself be alone! We're having fun. I can solve all your problems if you just stop talking to that man.” “I Would Call But I Don’t Hate Myself Anymore” “It's just funny that we made like a Robyn-esque pop song because originally we wrote it to more of a guitar line that was happening. It's so fun and silly. 'I would call you but I'd rather eat glass, but I'd rather do math, but I think I'll pass'—getting to say silly things, that's my favourite thing to do.” “I’m Perfect” “I'm from the Bay Area, and growing up, all I listened to was Bay Area rap and Kehlani. I know I'm not a rapper; I'm not planning on being a being a rapper anytime soon. But the thing that I love particularly about female rap music is that they're so unapologetic: 'I'm hot, I'm sexy, I'm perfect. I am gorgeous. I have an amazing body. My clothes are great. Every man wants me, and all my best friends are hot.' They just get to say whatever they want, and it's just so fun and free. I was like, OK, I can't make like a full rap song 'cause that just makes absolutely no sense for me. But what's my version of that—I can say all these things that are positive about myself. I can hype myself up, say my affirmations, and do that in a fun way that still feels like me.” “I Can Do Whatever I Want” “This is not your average single anthem, this is kind of selling the breakup as a jumping-off point for happiness. It's definitely not an R&B song, but it's kind of reminiscent of some songs that I made back in the day when all I was listening to was R&B. This is kind of weirdly the sister song of 'Girl, Just Be Alone!' because I'm praising living in like a bachelorette pad and being like, literally do whatever I want because there is no man in my house. I don't have to clean up after anybody. I can decorate it with weird shit. I can walk around naked and sing Beyoncé. I'm not singing Beyoncé as well because I don't have Beyoncé's vocal range, but who cares, 'cause no one's around to hear it.” “Imaginary” “Not only is it about the idealisation of someone and falling in love with the idea of who you think a person is, it's also about me dating actors or YouTubers or people that are literally playing a character and falling in love with that character and then realising that that character doesn't exist. I think that is a similar phenomenon to falling in love with the idea of someone, because I feel like it's quite often that you meet someone, and the way they present themselves to you at first is the best version of themselves, and it is kind of a character version of themselves.” “Heaven” “I've always had a very intense fear of death, dying, people I know and love dying. I cry when I see a video about a random person that died that I have never come across in my life, never will come across. It just really hits me hard. I was seeing this guy, and he had a twin brother, and we were having a deep convo at night as people do. The brother was like, ‘Would you rather die and it's just nothing and nothing happens, or would you rather keep on living forever? And I was like, 'Neither. I don't think I want dying, but I don't want to live forever, because I don't want to outlive everyone that I know and watch them all die. You lose the beauty of life if you live forever, because then it would lose all its meaning.' And then he goes, 'Well, those are your only two options.' It was probably panic-attack fuel for me for a long time, but then it was songwriting fuel.“