Can't Catch Me Now

"Can't Catch Me Now" is a song by American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo from the soundtrack to the 2023 American dystopian action film The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Rodrigo wrote it with its producer, Dan Nigro. Geffen Records released it as the soundtrack's second single on November 3, 2023. A folk rock ballad driven by acoustic guitars, "Can't Catch Me Now" has lyrics about vengeance and the narrator's ubiquitousness in the subject's life, inspired by the film's plot.

Music critics praised Rodrigo's ability to make folk-influenced music and her vocal performance on "Can't Catch Me Now", comparing its sound to the ballads on her own albums. The song received awards and nominations, including winning a Hollywood Music in Media Award and a Gold List award. It was shortlisted for Best Original Song at the 96th Academy Awards but was not nominated. In the United States, "Can't Catch Me Now" debuted at number 56 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song reached the top 30 in Australia, Ireland, Lithuania, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

Leonn Ward directed the music video for "Can't Catch Me Now", which intersperses scenes from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes with clips of Rodrigo singing it in a cabin and a grass field. She performed the song at the KIIS-FM Jingle Ball and on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Rodrigo included it on the set list for some dates of her 2024 concert tour, the Guts World Tour.

Background
For her debut studio album, Sour (2021), Olivia Rodrigo drew inspiration from several genres, including pop, folk, and alternative rock. Its sole producer, Dan Nigro, returned as her principal collaborator on the follow-up album, Guts (2023). It included some indie folk songs, with lyrical themes like heartbreak, body image, and social and adolescent anxieties. The album was released to critical acclaim in September 2023. The songs on the albums were autobiographical, with Rodrigo approaching the songwriting process like writing a diary entry.

In 2022, Rodrigo was approached to preview the American dystopian action film The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes and potentially write music inspired by it. A fan of the books and the soundtracks from the franchise, she considered it "such an honor". Rodrigo was stimulated by one of the final scenes in the movie, an aerial view of birds weaving in and out among trees, which she kept thinking about repeatedly and believed was the "climax". She felt a connection to the character Lucy Gray Baird, portrayed by Rachel Zegler; Rodrigo and Nigro wrote the song "Can't Catch Me Now" from her perspective, with the intention of capturing the scene. Rodrigo enjoyed the challenge of writing from a movie character's point of view, describing it as "sort of acting" and "character work", but she also believed parts of the song were about herself: "I think I injected parts of myself into it too. I saw bits of myself in her; I admired her resilience, so I tried to embody all that and put it into the song." Nigro nudged her to experiment with new musical styles on it as well.

On November 1, 2023, Rodrigo's hotline began playing a clip of "Can't Catch Me Now" on repeat. The same day, Lionsgate announced that the track would serve as the official song for the film, at a promotional event in Times Square which was attended by its actors Zegler, Tom Blyth, and Josh Andrés Rivera. Alongside a 60-second trailer of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, which featured the song, Rodrigo revealed it would be released two days later and expressed her excitement about the opportunity to write for the film. Geffen Records made "Can't Catch Me Now" available for pre-order and included it as the opening track on the film's accompanying 2023 soundtrack album. The song was also released as a 7-inch vinyl single.

Composition
"Can't Catch Me Now" is three minutes and 25 seconds long. Dan Nigro produced and mixed the song, and he engineered it with Dylan Waterhouse. He plays guitar, keyboards, bass, mellotron; Paul Cartwright conducted the string arrangement and plays viola and violin; and Chappell Roan provides the background vocals. Randy Merrill mastered it.

"Can't Catch Me Now" is a folk rock ballad, driven by acoustic guitar instrumentation. The song opens with that instrument as the sole accompaniment to Rodrigo's voice and subsequently includes strings. She harmonizes with herself on it, which Stereogum's Chris DeVille described as "piercing". "Can't Catch Me Now" employs a melody which gradually rises to a slow crescendo, and the intensity escalates when Rodrigo belts the titular lyric over orchestral instrumentation: "You can't, you can't catch me now." Her voice ascends while singing the lyric "Coming like a storm into your town." The song ramps up and reaches an intense climax, after which Rodrigo sings the final lyric with "an open, unresolved cadence" according to Consequence's Carys Anderson and Jo Vito.

The lyrics of "Can't Catch Me Now" are written from Lucy Gray's perspective, inspired by the plot of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. They are about vengeance and the narrator's ubiquitousness in the subject's life. The first verse describes scenes like snowfall and mountains, as the narrator wonders that the subject probably expected them to become less furious over time. In the chorus, they taunt the subject that, despite being everywhere, they would not be captured by the latter: "But I'm in the trees, I'm in the breeze / My footsteps on the ground / You'll see my face in every place / But you can't catch me now." Rodrigo then sings the lyric "Coming like a storm into your town", which Steffanee Wang of Nylon interpreted as a reference to Lucy Gray. During the song's conclusion, Rodrigo alludes to the film again: "Yeah, sometimes the fire you founded / Don't burn the way you'd expect / Yeah, you thought that this was the end."

Critical reception
Critics were positive about "Can't Catch Me Now" and believed its folk-influenced production suited Rodrigo. Vanity Fair's Rob Ledonne described the song as emotional and compelling, and he thought it proved that folk music could also showcase her talent and marked "one more step towards Rodrigo's world domination". Alex Hopper of American Songwriter believed it was alluring, shocking, and "one of her most interesting songs to date". Though he thought "Can't Catch Me Now" represented a change in Rodrigo's sound, it also felt natural to her and Nigro.

Critics believed "Can't Catch Me Now" resembled the ballads on her own albums, and Billboard's Jason Lipshutz opined it formed an earnest addition to the soundtrack and her discography. Some reviewers, like Anderso, Vito, and The New Zealand Herald's Alana Rae, praised Rodrigo's vocal performance. Liberty Dunworth of NME called her voice "haunting", and Wang believed it "soars into the treetops". Ledonne, Anderson, and Vito thought the melodies were luxurious, and some others described the acoustic instrumentation as intense.

"Can't Catch Me Now" received awards and nominations. The song won the 2023 Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Original Song in a Sci-Fi, Fantasy or Horror Film, and in 2024, the Gold List award for Best Original Song and the Society of Composers and Lyricists Award for Outstanding Original Song for a Dramatic or Documentary Visual Media Production. It received nominations for Best Original Song at the 2023 North Carolina Film Critics Association and the 2024 Gold Derby Film Awards, as well as the 2024 Guild of Music Supervisors Award for Best Song Written and/or Recording Created for a Film. "Can't Catch Me Now" was shortlisted for Best Original Song at the 96th Academy Awards but was not nominated.

Commercial performance
"Can't Catch Me Now" debuted at number 56 on the US Billboard Hot 100 issued for November 18, 2023. In Canada, the song peaked at number 42 on the Canadian Hot 100 issued for December 2, 2023, and was certified platinum by Music Canada. It reached number 12 on the UK Singles Chart. "Can't Catch Me Now" received a silver certification in the United Kingdom from the British Phonographic Industry, and the Official Charts Company declared it her 16th-biggest song in the country in February 2024.

In Australia, "Can't Catch Me Now" charted at number 23 and was certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The song entered at number 15 in New Zealand. It peaked at number 43 on the Billboard Global 200. Elsewhere, "Can't Catch Me Now" reached the top 50 at number 5 in Ireland, number 25 in Lithuania, number 37 in Norway, number 44 in the Czech Republic, number 45 in the Netherlands, and number 50 in Slovakia. The song received a gold certification in Brazil and Poland.

Music video
Leonn Ward directed the music video for "Can't Catch Me Now", which was released on November 13, 2023. The cinematic video intersperses clips of Rodrigo with scenes from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. It begins with a camera tracking shot being guided inside an isolated cabin, where she performs the song on a guitar while perched on a bed. After strolling through the cabin, Rodrigo leaves it and runs through a field of grass in a white sleek dress during the bridge. She also sings the chorus during this sequence: "You'll see my face in every place / But you can't catch me now." Scenes depicting Blyth and Zegler portraying their characters play out simultaneously. In the final scene, sunlight falls upon Rodrigo.

Live performances and other usage
Rodrigo performed "Can't Catch Me Now" live for the first time at the KIIS-FM Jingle Ball on December 1, 2023. USA Today's KiMi Robinson remarked that even though the song was only a month old at the time, the fans sang along as if it had been out for much longer, and iHeartRadio's Sarah Tate thought it "continued to build energy and defiance" during her set. 10 days later, Rodrigo reprised it on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Clad in a white slip dress, she initially sat on a stool amidst bare trees and a fog-covered set before standing up and delivering the chorus with a backing band of four musicians and singers. Gil Kaufman of Billboard believed the theater was filled with electrifying pop energy. Rodrigo included it on the set list for some dates of her 2024 concert tour, the Guts World Tour. Miami New Times's Celia Almeida considered it a highlight of the show.

Kelly Clarkson covered "Can't Catch Me Now" on The Kelly Clarkson Show on April 25, 2024, in an olive green cargo dress with her hair styled in soft waves. Writing for Billboard, Rania Aniftos described it as "flawlessly delivered".

Credits and personnel
Credits are adapted from Qobuz.
 * Dan Nigro – producer, songwriter, mixing, engineer, guitar, keyboards, bass, mellotron
 * Olivia Rodrigo – songwriter
 * Paul Cartwright – string arrangement, viola, violin
 * Dylan Waterhouse – engineer
 * Chappell Roan – background vocals
 * Randy Merrill – mastering