Olivia Rodrigo – “The Book Of Love” (The Magnetic Fields Cover)

Today, War Child's all-star benefit compilation HELP(2) finally comes out. It's a good one. The record, our current reigning Album Of The Week, has new songs from heavy hitters like Cameron Winter, the Arctic Monkeys, and Pulp. It's also got a ton of extremely cool covers: Beth Gibbons doing the Velvet Underground, Arooj Aftab and Beck doing Jeff Buckley, Depeche Mode doing Buffy Saint-Marie, beabadoobee doobeeing Elliott Smith, and Fontaines D.C. doing Sinéad O'Connor. But the cover that might get the most attention is the last song on the comp: Olivia Rodrigo doing the Magnetic Fields. She kills that shit.

The Magnetic Fields' all-time classic "The Book Of Love" comes from the still-stunning 1999 triple album 69 Love Songs. It's a beautiful and weirdly wise song, but Stephin Merritt has always insisted that it's not that meaningful for him. That song, like everything else on 69 Love Songs, was just a writing exercise. That's not how people receive it, though. That song means everything to people. Two of my very good friends had "The Book Of Love" as the first dance at their wedding. And Olivia Rodrigo sings it like it means something.

Rodrigo's bare, simple, beautiful cover of "The Book Of Love" doesn't have any of the theater-kid energy that she sometimes brings to her music. She sings it plainly and almost conversationally, and she puts a ton of feeling into it. James Ford, who produced the HELP(2) compilation while recovering from leukemia, co-produced Rodrigo's cover with Catherine Marks and Toby L. It's got Blur's Graham Coxon on guitar, Ed Harcourt on keyboards and backing vocals, and a string arrangement from the Night Orchestra. Below, check out Rodrigo's cover and her behind-the-scenes video.

War Child UK also shared a video filmed by children in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, and Yemen.

In other Olivia Rodrigo news, she's currently working on her third album, the follow-up to 2023's GUTS. Last month, her regular collaborator Dan Nigro posted a studio photo, with the caption "Finishing records…" Rodrigo commented, "the palpable stress in this photo hahahha."

At Paris Fashion Week yesterday, Rodrigo declined to reveal her new LP's title.

She also shouted out her homies in the Cure.

The HELP(2) comp is out now on War Child Records. Today is Bandcamp Friday, so if you buy it at Bandcamp today, all of the money goes straight to War Child.